A. Z. CONRAD 








na 


» + tees arn ere ae rte < i= x} bres + Pe ee) eet tate annual a ~ 
phe RE er hr ees A ee ee ee oan bs dT RARER ERED BER ered Lee eter anther gn. cL >see 


























ie ys eis rR ‘ r ey eet, 
OL As ae ar a (a F a a a 
ene saat f te AY it z Pts a uy iy f 
? RCE: Seyret att Fe my +i f Ly 4) vl 
bates ee Ae 
? (f _ hsby ye 
i) 4 ’ 1 
, cd 
ve Bags f i 
yr , 
ie i tg ‘s 
its ; ay A ; 
it ey ! M4 : ; ; ) 
Shae eae rey 
Ae i Re i 
’ i 
J ' 
he ' 
4. 
* an 
Pe 
‘A, 
: { 
a } 
4 i 
¥ yj 
vig 3 sh } , 
4 ify . 
“ : iy ; 
a ESUS CHRIST AT THE CROSSROADS 
} is 
f dee z 
of 
1 a 
' ; 
' 
' 
} jis 
ny ' 
i 
h) 
ra 
\ py 
J at wt 
i f \ 
+ \ i] 7 i 
¢ ‘ 
: vat Rye , 
i ; 7 
. ] 4 H : tals 
: i " 
F ; ‘ * a i 
; : , r + 








_ Jesus Christ 


at the 


Crossroads 


| By 
A. Z. CONRAD, Ph. D., D.D. 


Pastor, Park Street Congregational 
Church, Boston, Mass. 





New York CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LONDON AND EpDINBURGH 


Copyright, 1924, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


To the members and Congregation of Park 
Street Church, of Boston, Mass., in grateful 
recognition of never-failing loyalty and love 
during eighteen years of delightful ministry, 


this volume is affectionately inscribed. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/jesuschristatcroOOconr 


Preface 


life the upward incline is the chief business 

of Christianity. The fact of the Incarna- 
tion finds its chief significance in its purpose and 
power to face the world Godward. The slightest 
upward trend ultimately reaches the Throne. The 
slightest trend away from truth means the dismal 
swamp of doubt and then—the pit. 

Appraisements must have a goal in view. The 
chief peril lies in smoke-screening the consequences 
of the course pursued. Unmask error and men 
will flee from it. 

Given an unpiloted ship and a wild sea with a 
shoreward drift, and wreck is inevitable. Given 
a luring light on a rock-bound coast with a pre- 
sumptuous pilot, and every passenger is imperilled. 
Again, a dragging anchor will not prevent dis- 
astrous drift. 

Language is our medium of expression. Words 
and phrases may be as successfully used to camou- 
flage error as to reveal truth. E'ven the name of 
Jesus may be emptied of its content and divested of 
every Divine significance. 

A passion for “ recentness ’’ dominates present- 
day thinking. “ Newness”’ is, with many, synony- 

fi 


|B peers determines destiny. To give 


8 PREFACE 


mous with trueness. The “last dispatch” is ac- 
cepted as a new revelation of truth. Yesterday’s 
realities are bartered away for today’s materialities. 
But truth is timeless. It is neither more nor less 
true because of the date label of its discovery. 
Denials destroy no verities. Christianity rests on 
unshakable validities. It is the blazing presence of 
truth that best reveals error. Contrasts and com- 
parisons unmask the false and emphasise the trust- 
worthiness of truth. 

In the religious thinking of today two directions 
are taken. Evangelicals represent a group defi- 
nitely marked by the fixed course adopted. Mod- 
ernists constitute another group whose direction is 
divergent from that of the Evangelicals. 

However slight the difference may seem at the 
outset of the movement and however indistinguish- 
able from an ethical standpoint, their courses lead 
to a destiny as wide apart as the poles. There are 
many varieties of individual divergence, yet the 
divergence is there. Many professed evangelicals 
have lost sight of the mountain-peaks of Revela- 
tion while many modernists are straining at the 
rudder to keep the prow from leaving the course 
that will eventually land the ship in the port of 
Peace. The main fact of life is the trend and 
tendency. 

The object of this book is to set in clear contrast 
these two dominant groups of professed Christians 
with reference to the courses followed and the ef- 


PREFACE 9 


fect on the individual and on society of each 
course. 

Labels are often libels. The writer is not a 
“literalist ”’ nor a “ verbalist,’ yet a believer in a 
fully inspired Gospel of Christ. This book is writ- 
ten from the standpoint of a Progressive Evan- 
gelical, which designation the writer accepts. 

Fei ain Ce 
Boston, Mass. 





Contents 


. THE CONTROVERSY . 
. CoNTRAST AND COMPARISON 


. CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM 


. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE . 
. THE CuHRIst OF THE GOSPELS OR THE 


Jesus oF MoDERNISM—WHICH? . 


. THE IMPREGNABLE FortTREsS 


REVELATION . 


. THE VircIN BirtH 

. REDEMPTION 

. THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER . 
. CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE . 

. THe MINistry AND MopERNISM 
. SCHOLARSHIP 

. RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 

. Tue Biicut oF MopERNISM 
. EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 

. Tus Lost Cumst . 

. THe BricHtErR Day 


11 


OF 


EDR 
. 106 
. 114 
ey 
ESO 
My 
. 142 





I 
THE CONTROVERSY 


T is a battle-royal. Modernists have issued the 
challenge. Evangelicals accept it. There is 
no discharge in this war. It is the bounden 

duty of believers in the Christ of the Gospels 
to lay bare the causes of present-day apostasy. 
Camouflaged error is illusive and alluring. The 
masked batteries of Modernism must be revealed 
and their destructive nature unfolded. Clad in the 
livery of Heaven, mistaken leaders conduct the 
unwary into the labyrinth of doubt, from which 
extrication is difficult. Opposition is to be met out 
in the open with straightforward, unequivocal af- 
firmation and argument. For Evangelicals who 
know it is a matter of life and death; either to 
ignore the present anti-supernaturalist movement, 
or to treat it with levity, is a betrayal of a sacred 
trust. Educated men of conviction appreciate its 
gravity. If any subject in God’s Universe is vital 
it is the secret and source of life everlasting. 
Those who think deeply and without bias, know 
that ethics and service must have adequate motive. 
There is much amiable agnosticism. It is much 
pleasanter to fellowship than to fight. Loyalty 


13 


14 THE CONTROVERSY 


cannot sacrifice truth for amity. Conviction com- 
pels a constructive programme independently of 
sentiment. Truth has always advanced in the 
teeth of storm. The conflict calls for courage and 
conscientiousness. The world has no use for tem- 
porizers or trimmers. Diplomacy in religion is 
softness and weakness, and means surrender. In 
plaintive platitudes modernism is pleading for an 
armistice. We are told that the present agitation 
is most disagreeable and might hurt the Church. 
Better that the Church be disturbed than destroyed. 
Better cleavage than chaos. Better denominational 
division than unhindered drift toward doom. Bet- 
ter arousement and alarm than the paralysis of 
ignoble pacifism. Better the painful probe than the 
permeating poison. Better that modernism be ham- 
mered than that the Church should be hamstrung. 

As well say the foundation of Washington 
Monument is not important to the permanence of 
the structure as to say that the outstanding facts of 
Revelation do not matter. If a switchman is 
throwing a lever that will wreck a train, every in- 
telligent and right-thinking man would say, “ Flag 
the oncoming train.” It is high time for the men 
and women who have had that deep and holy trans- 
action with God, known as conversion and regener- 
ation, to awaken out of sleep. 

“Questions of theological and religious prin- 
ciple are not to be adjusted, like political measures, 
by compromise, but must be fought through to 


THE CONTROVERSY 15 


their last results, and the truth must either conquer 
or (for the time) succumb.”—Schaff, History of 
the Christian Church, III, 621. 

“Tt has often been remarked that truth and error 
keep pace with each other. Error is the shadow 
cast by truth, truth the bright side brought out by 
error. ’—Dean Stanley, Apostolic Age, p. 182. 

Many shades of opinion are finding expression. 
There are two great divisions and in one or the 
other of the contending camps are to be found all 
the people who have definite religious opinions. 
There are, after all, two great parties, the evan- 
gelical and the modernist. The difference between 
the two is as wide as the poles. The evangelical 
group holds unequivocally and tenaciously to the 
Revealed Gospel. This group insists that we have 
an authoritative and reliable Revelation from God 
in both the Old and New Testaments. ‘They accept 
readily and unhesitatingly “The Glorious Gospel 
of the Blessed God” at its face value. For this 
acceptance they offer no apology. It follows, as a 
matter of course, that they accept Jesus Christ 
exactly as He is represented in the Four Gospels. 
They recognise that Christianity is not based upon 
theory but upon a series of unalterable facts. ‘They 
have therefore no difficulty whatever in attaching 
an authoritative value to all the teachings of Jesus. 
The Bible is to the evangelicals the Inspired Word 
of God, worthy of unquestioning credence, and the 
one external rule of faith and practice. Modernism 


16 THE CONTROVERSY 


has, as its distinctive feature, a repudiation of an 
authoritative Revelation from God, in the Bible, 
and places strictures and limitations on Jesus Christ 
Himself, as portrayed in the Gospels. The Bible is 
to the modernist a series of sifted traditions of 
varying and often questionable value. Modernism 
is governed by a naturalistic philosophy of God’s 
universe and of human life. While there are large 
numbers of people in the modernist group who re- 
pudiate its logical conclusions, they are all headed 
the one way, and are inevitably and irresistibly led 
toward agnosticism with an ever-lessening trust in 
a Divine Revelation. 

The issue before us is, therefore, not to be lightly 
regarded. Nothing could be more futile than the 
effort to make the general public believe that this is 
a controversy over words and phrases unworthy of 
serious consideration. As a matter of fact, it isa 
life and death struggle. While Christianity con- 
tains prudential directions, friendly counsel, whole- 
some advice, these are not its outstanding features. 
The great antithetic in the Christian religion is ex- 
pressed in the words “life” and “death.” The 
whole teaching of Jesus emphasises the contrast 
designated in these terms. No easy-going inter- 
pretations can permanently satisfy inquiring minds. 
We carry with us a consciousness of duty and des- 
tiny, which only rests when it has found secure 
foundations. The great propositions of Christian- 
ity are therefore basic and fundamental. The 


THE CONTROVERSY 17 


Biblical conceptions of the issues involved in the 
present controversy are stated in unmistakable 
terms, in both the Old and New Testament. 

From the Biblical standpoint the supreme need 
of humanity is salvation. The terms “lost” and 
“saved” are not descriptive of conditions some- 
what divergent, though not necessarily important. 
That we may place more definitely before you what 
we conceive to be the contrast between the evangel- 
ical and the modernist position, let us see them in 
juxtaposition. There is no question but what many 
people have been entirely misled respecting the tre- 
mendous importance of the present-day discussion. 
Many who have not clearly before them the actual 
trend and tendency of modernism have regarded it 
with more or less favour because they have thought 
it to represent some new discovery of truth, and 
have been led to believe that there is nothing vitally 
fundamental in the issue itself. We are confident 
all this would be immediately changed if the aver- 
age man clearly understood what is involved and 
whither he is being misled by the sophistries and 
gratuitous assertions of modernism. ‘The contrast 
which immediately follows might be largely ex- 
tended in its application, but here touches the more 
vital features. 


I 
CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 


LL people in the religious world are either 

in the evangelical or the modernist camp. 

Here is the great division, and you can no 

more unite the two than you can mix oil and water 

or darkness and light. The positions are mutually 

exclusive. The frantic appeal for “silence and 

union’? goes unheeded and unheard because it is 
utterly absurd. 

The Biblical position is as clear as the daylight. 
The evangelical position is so evidently Biblical that 
to abandon it necessitates the abandonment of the 
Bible as a book of authority. That is precisely 
what the modernist does, and in that he is per- 
fectly logical. So much dust has been raised by 
modernism in an attempt, on the part of those who 
have hitherto been thought to be evangelical, to 
obscure the real issue that the man in the street is 
confused and uncertain as to what it is all about. 

Evangelicals unhesitatingly accept the super- 
natural in accounting for the universe. 

Modernists reject the supernatural with the 
slogan, “‘ Nothing above the natural order.” 

Evangelicals accept the Biblical statements: 


18 


CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 19 


“God created the heaven and the earth,’ and 
“God created man in his own image, in the image 
of God created he him.” 

Modernists find the cosmos and man, results of 
a merely chemical process and make even Jesus the 
product of heredity and environment. 

Evangelicals adopt as a foundation truth the fact 
of a supernatural Revelation, the Bible, which 1s 
reliable, genuine, authentic, trustworthy, as a rule 
of faith and practice, faultless and obligatory on 
the conscience. 

Modernists regard the Bible as merely sifted 
tradition and without authority over the actions, 
motives and thoughts of men. 

Evangelicals accept the recorded miracles of the 
Bible as facts employed to accredit a divine mes- 
sage, and regard these miracles as well attested as 
any facts of history. 

Modernists reject miracles as recorded, account- 
ing for the record on the ground of human credul- 
ity and superstition. 

Evangelicals accept the Virgin Birth of Christ 
as definitely revealed in the Gospels of Matthew 
and Luke and as well accredited as the record of 
the Sermon on the Mount or any other part of the 
Gospel message. 

Modernists repudiate in toto the Nativity story, 
and make Jesus Christ the son of Joseph or of a 
Roman soldier. 

Evangelicals accept at its face value the estimate 


20 CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 


Jesus placed upon Himself as the “ Only Begotten 
Son of God” and an Atoning Saviour. 

Modernists attempt to bring Christ down to the 
level of ordinary humanity, only a little more 
complete. 

Evangelicals make Christ an absolute authority 
in all matters of the soul. 

Modernists applaud Christ’s teachings as exalted 
and His example as worthy of emulation, but in no 
other way than that of other men of eminence, 
except in degree. wie 

Evangelicals recognise that the place of the 
Christ of the Gospels is beside the Father—that 
He is to receive worship and adoration exactly as 
the Father. 

Modernists assume to bring Jesus down to a level 
with themselves, and to stand with Him in directing 
worship to the Father, divesting Him thus of all 
divine prerogatives, except as all men are divine. 

Evangelicals regard Christ’s death on the Cross 
as Redemptive and a true atonement for sin. 

Modernists reject the idea that sin needs any 
atonement and make Christ’s death merely a 
martyrdom. 

Evangelicals believe that Christ has power to for- 
give sin and that He is man’s Mediator for ever 
and ever. 

Modernists deny this power of Christ to deal 
with sin, and declare that no mediator is necessary 
between man and the Father. 


CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 21 


Evangelicals recognise that sin must be treated 
redemptively. 

Modernists deny that sin is sin, as such, at all; 
call it a disease which may be successfully treated 
pathologically. 

Evangelicals believe that “the wages of sin ig 
death” and that ‘the gift of God is eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord” precisely as de- 
clared in the Bible. 

Modernists look upon sin as misdoing, to be 
pitied rather than to be judged, and reject the idea 
that God can, or will punish beyond the grave. 

Evangelicals accept the definitely stated fact of 
the Bible that regeneration is necessary to salvation, 
in accordance with Christ’s own declaration, “‘ Ye 
must be born again.” 

Modernists declare that man needs no regener- 
ation, but that reformation is sufficient; they are 
thus in positive conflict with one of the most defi- 
nite statements of Jesus. 

Evangelicals believe in the actual bodily resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

Modernists deny im toto the physical resurrection 
of Jesus. 

Evangelicals regard the Christ of the Gospels as 
the real Christ, to be accepted and trusted. 

Modernists construct a Jesus of their own and 
urge loyalty to a Jesus divested both of glory and 
power. 

Evangelicals believe in the triumphal return of 


22 CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 


Jesus Christ, with varying shades of opinion as to 
its nature. 

Modernists see no hope, whatever, of the Second 
Coming of Jesus. 

Evangelicals believe the Church is the Bride of 
Christ as the Scriptures declare; that it is Christ’s 
Church and a permanent way of realising the 
Kingdom. 

Modernists believe the Church is like any so- 
ciety or club, transient in its nature and destined to 
disappear as a spiritual agency. 

Evangelicals believe in the factual basis of Chris- 
tianity, in the demonstrated and the long-tested 
truths. 

Modernists rest on the theoretical, the specula- 
tive and the unproven, conceived to be desirable. 

Evangelicals begin with well accredited facts and 
develop a theology to meet those facts. 

Modernists begin with the pre-conceived and 
unproven, and undertake to compel facts to fit its 
theory. ! : 

Evangelicals are everywhere supported and their 
positions buttressed by ‘‘ Thus saith the Lord.” 

Modernists know no such thing as “ ‘Thus saith 
the Lord,” and depend upon ‘ Thus saith science 
and thus say human philosophies of life.” 

Evangelicals believe in a living Christ, actively 
participating in the affairs of men, today. 

Modernists know only a Jesus who died as other 
men, and who has left only the influence of his life 


CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 23 


just as other men have, thus affecting the activities 
of men today. : 

Evangelicals believe that Christianity is the only 
true religion, and is to be contrasted rather than 
compared with all other religions. 

Modernists regard Christianity as one of many 
religions, in some respects better, but in other re- 
spects no better than the historic, ethnic faiths. 

Evangelicals believe that the religious terminol- 
ogy long used, has a sacred content and that it is 
dishonest to employ old words, divested of all their 
familiar meaning, while the masses suppose the 
words are being used with the accepted significance. 

Modernists treat words and phrases as a magi- 
cian treats objects in his hands, practicing illusion 
and delusion at will. 

Evangelicals applaud learning, welcome the 
demonstrated facts of science, but refuse to be 
deceived or browbeaten into regarding as among 
“assured results”’ the vagaries and unsupported 
assertions of many who call themselves scientists. 

Modernists permit the dictation of science along 
all religious lines and accept as final the “ipse 
dixit ’ of titled men, in a realm where only Revela- 
tion can possibly speak with authority. 

Here, then, we have the contrast definitely and 
clearly stated, and you can readily determine with 
which group you prefer to associate yourself. 

The Bible is the Book of God, an impregnable 
fortress, an actual Revelation of God to man. 


24 CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 


Who is willing to make the absurd exchange 
which the assumptions, the groundless assertions, 
the vague theories, the unfounded propositions, the 
undemonstrated speculations of liberalism demand? 
It is changing gold nuggets for “ fool’s gold.” It 
is accepting a bit of crystal quartz for a diamond. 
It is giving away a fragrant rose for a paper 
flower; it is leaving the sun-crowned, healthful 
plateau for a miasmic swamp; it is removing one’s 
house from rock foundations to engulfing quick- 
sands; it is leaving tropical flowers and fruits for 
a desert waste; it is leaving the perennial waters 
of a spring for a stagnant pool. 

It is leaving the ocean liner on which one is 
moving safely to a foreign port, and embarking on 
a waterlogged, unpiloted derelict, with neither cap- 
tain nor compass, the sport of the winds and headed 
for wreck. 

It is throwing away a lifebelt for the shadow of 
a cloud upon the water. It is exchanging gold coin 
for a chance at the pot of gold at the foot of the 
rainbow. 

Modernism is the prophet’s staff in the hand 
of the servant of the prophet laid on the face of 
the dead child. ‘There was neither voice nor 
hearing.”’ II Kings iv: 31. 

The resource of those who trust in the Living 
Christ is unlimited. To those who have found 
Christ a Saviour, He gives the right to draw on 
Him for everything necessary at any moment. 


CONTRAST AND COMPARISON 25 


*“ Ask, and ye shall receive.” ‘‘ Ye shall ask what 
ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” “All 
things are yours.” 

What can possibly give the cheer and the joy of 
knowing that Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord of 
Glory, walks through the day with you and knows 
every sigh, every disappointment, every heartache, 
and has the remedy for every ill? It is the glad 
testimony of millions that He gives beyond expec- 
tation. He paves the way to the heights. “ He 
was tempted in all points like as we are, yet with- 
out sin.’ “In that He was tempted, He knows 
how to deliver the godly out of temptation.” To 
lose the sense of Christ’s nearness is to lose the 
sense of power and peace. 

Thousands cry, today, in sheer despair, “ They 
have taken away my Lord and I know not where 
they have laid him.” If you are one, here is a word 
for you: You will find Him where you lost Him; 
at the prayer place; at the Word which you began 
to distrust; at the church you began to neglect. If 
you have lost Him, pray that you may recover 
Him now. 


IIT 
CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM 


ODERNISM is pre-eminently  distin- 
guished by two outstanding qualities, 
antiquity and failure. It contains not one 

single NEW element. Masquerading as a product 
of recent intellectual effort and as a result of new 
discovery, it is in reality must-covered and dust- 
covered with age. Every objection now offered 
was presented during the infancy of the Church of 
God. Anti-supernaturalism as related to Jesus 
Christ was at the forefront in Ebionism, Arianism, 
Sabellianism, when the Church was still weak in 
numbers, though strong in faith. ‘The deity of 
Jesus Christ was attacked with all the parade of 
learning and vehemence of opposition and with 
every argument that is offered today. 

But dismissing God Almighty from His universe 
and bowing Jesus Christ out of His Gospel is not 
so easy a task as modernists seem to think. Mod- 
ernism is running true to form, when it claims in- 
tellectual pre-eminence. In this respect it has a 
great inheritance. Modesty has never been char- 
acteristic of unbelief in any of its forms. Arius 
and Celsus both proclaimed from the housetops, 


26 


CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM 27 


that all intelligent people had abandoned the Gospel 
appraisement of Jesus of Nazareth. They, and 
their associates, tried to laugh out of court the 
witnesses for the deity of Jesus. They were sure 
the learning of the world was with them. Aposta- 
sies multiplied and when Athanasius stood as the 
most learned and the most illustrious exponent of 
an Inspired Gospel and a Divine Christ, he seemed 
to his opponents as the swan-singer of a dying 
cause, while they loudly proclaimed that “all schol- 
ars’ and “every educated man” had thrown over- 
board the ideas of a Virgin-born Jesus, a redemp- 
tive Christ and Resurrection a physical reality, 
after Jesus had been placed in the tomb of the 
Arimathzean. 

The oldest book in the world is the Book of Job. 
In that we have the counterpart of the contest 
between evangelicals and modernists. 

Job was humble, had faith in God and in Revela- 
tion, believed in repentance and remission of sins 
through sacrifice. He believed in the love of God, 
but understood well, that with a just God, sin can- 
not be whitewashed and made respectable by soft 
terms and mild phrases. 

Then came a controversy. The sons of God 
came together, and, as is usual, “ Satan came also 
among them.” 

Jehovah asked him where he had been? He 
answered: “From going to and fro in the earth 
and from walking up and down in it.” In other 


28 CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM 


words, he was engaged in a widespread propa- 
ganda against the truth. Then, after Jehovah had 
called attention to the rectitude and devotion of 
Job, Satan proposed to prove that Job was 
righteous for revenue only. A little later three 
modernists, Job’s supposed friends, entered into 
controversy with him, seeking to break his faith 
in revealed religion. Job stood his ground and 
received the approbation of Jehovah. The three 
modernists made a great show of learning and 
told Job that “all scholars”’ were of the opinion 
that his position was an outworn and impossible 
theory. 

Their erudition counted for nothing against the 
clear enunciation of truth given by Jehovah. Had 
the “three friends” been as willing to be taught 
of God as was the afflicted believer, they might 
have reached different conclusions. They staked. 
everything on their own unaided wisdom, their 
self-sufficient knowledge and their predetermined 
conclusions as to what God Almighty ought to do. 

Another characteristic of modernism is its 
constant exhortation to “breadth.” Yet its vo- 
cabulary of invective is unsurpassed. Its char- 
acterisations of those who adhere to Revealed 
truth are loaded to the limit with vituperation, 
sarcasm, raillery and every sort of abuse. They 
expend a tremendous amount of ammunition on 
straw men of their own making. There can be no 
question that in every religious controversy there is 


CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM 29 


danger of violating the spirit of Christian love. 
Often, however, this is more seeming than real. 
In the case of intense conviction, only intense ex- 
pression may be expected. 

Nothing more discredits modernism than its un- 
ceasing proclamation of “assured results”? which 
are merely assertions and absolutely undemon- 
strated propositions. ‘There are no “assured re- 
sults ”’ that contradict the historic faith. 

The lack of heartfulness is seen in the cold- 
blooded way in which the humble trust of disciples 
of Jesus is attacked, ridiculed and summarily dis- 
posed of. What possible good is accomplished by 
such a proceeding? It was the boast of Sir Wal- 
ter Scott that he had never written anything that 
would lessen the faith of any man in God. Until 
modernism has something besides happy or un- 
happy guesses and idle speculations to offer in 
place of the Gospel of Christ both reason and 
kindness would dictate that the faith be left un- 
disturbed, which gives spiritual vigour, peace 
and hope. 

Truth is eternal. The attempt to discredit the 
Gospel by calling it ancient, is utterly stupid. The 
sun is old, but not obsolete. God’s throne is old, 
but represents the mastery of the world. 

None more than evangelicals applaud scholar- 
ship for what it accomplishes in aiding a correct 
interpretation of truth and in scientific discovery. 
Evangelicals have nothing to lose and everything 


80 CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERNISM 


to gain from the most painstaking inquiry and the 
most erudite investigation of the revealed and the 
historically demonstrated. 

The most modern thing in the world is God’s 
Revealed Word. Later than the last word of the 
radio is the Counsel of the Infinite. It meets the 
latest need, the instant the need is felt. It is always 
in advance of the pilgrim and anticipates his every 
want. The last sigh of pain, the last search for 
truth, the last emotion of joy, the very last sense 
of hunger or thirst, all these are answered instantly 
with the ripest and greatest and truest conceivable 
thing: “ Thus saith the Lord.” No believing being 
is so thrilled with up-to-dateness, as the believer in 
Jesus who hears His voice, feels His touch and 
trusts His leadership. 


IV; 
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE 


the Christ of the Gospel and the Book of 

God are arising in all parts of the world 
and giving utterance to their profound convictions, 
modernists are in a great state of excitement urg- 
ing a truce. Many good people, not appreciating 
the critical and serious situation confronting the 
world, are calling for quiet, and asking that there 
should be at once a cessation of hostilities. For 
a quarter of a century modernism has had pretty 
much its own way. A silence, probably more or 
less guilty, upon the part of evangelicals, has per- 
mitted an extensive propaganda against Biblical 
inspiration, the Deity of Christ, the Atonement, 
and, indeed, against every one of the great Funda- 
mentals of the Faith. Men say, “ We are tired of 
strife, and what we want to hear is the preaching 
of the Gospel.” Modernists have all at once shown 
a tremendous interest in this “ preaching the Gos- 
pel,’ though the logic of their own utterances 
would leave the Church with no true Gospel to 
preach. The Gospel is God’s Word of redemption. 
The Gospel is the proclamation of emancipation 


31 


B ECAUSE the number of loyal witnesses for 


82 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE 


through Divine sacrifice. In a very true sense, 
the Divine Christ is Himself “ The Good News 
to the world.” 

We quite agree that the chief business of the 
Christian ministry is, and ever must be, a faithful 
presentation of the Gospel of Grace. Just this is 
what the modernists have not been preaching and 
have no intention of preaching. If the message 
of the New Testament is not, as respects doctrine 
and life, an infallible one, there is no sure Gospel 
to proclaim. Modernists understand perfectly well 
that they can never hold their own, under the lime- 
light of the testimony of human experience where 
definite transactions with God have been realised. 
Therefore the frantic appeal for silence just now 
is not surprising. There is, however, a logic of 
silence with which we must reckon. Silence is con- 
sent; consent is participation; participation is re- 
sponsibility for all the consequences. — 

An illuminating passage in Ezekiel 33: 6 empha- 
sizes the responsibility of the Christian ministry: 
“But if the watchman see the sword come and 
blow not the trumpet, and the people be not 
warned; if the sword come and take any person 
from among them, he is taken away in his in- 
iquity; but his blood will I require at the watch- 
man’s hand.”’ It is not so easy, therefore, to shirk 
obligation in the interests of a false peace. Mod- 
ernists are making loud assertions about the trouble 
which is being stirred up by evangelicals. Modern- 


THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE 33 


ists and liberals are accusing the defenders of the 
faith with the entire responsibility for present-day 
contentions in religion. We hear much about “ the 
iniquity of heresy hunting,” and still more about 
“the perils of prospective division and new align- 
ment in the denominations.” Evangelicals have 
not the slightest anxiety with respect to the in- 
vincibility of the Christian faith. ‘They have not 
the slightest fear that the Word of God will lose 
its hold, nor are they troubled lest the traditional 
beliefs of Christendom shall be permanently super- 
seded by the errors of modernism. They do, how- 
ever, have a very genuine concern lest multitudes 
of people following false lights shall be led astray 
and suffer not only temporal, but eternal loss. 
Positively sure that the Bible is true when it de- 
clares to us that “there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must be 
saved’ than the Name of Jesus; equally sure that 
“he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved ” 
and “he that believeth not shall be condemned ”’; 
also positive that “the gift of God is eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord,’ they are com- 
pelled to utter their word of warning and to op- 
pose with all vigour the utterances and activities 
of modernism. Evangelicals have no right to be 
silent. The hour has struck when every true wit- 
ness of the Lord Jesus Christ must speak out with 
definiteness. Evangelicals have sat by and watched 
modernism stealthily, surreptitiously capture the 


384 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE 


various organised agencies of religious activity. 
They have taken possession of the denominational 
Boards. ‘They have permitted, with all too little 
protest, the boldest and most daring denials of a 
vast number of truths held sacred by the successive 
generations of Christians since the day of Jesus 
Christ. They have seen churches by the hundreds 
sparsely attended in the morning and dark at 
night, steadily decreasing in power and influence, 
and have gone on in the even tenor of their way, 
without sounding the trumpet-blast of alarm which 
should long ago have been clearly heard. 

Every man who has had a true vision of the 
Christ of the Gospels is under bounden obligation 
to take his place as a witness to the truth as it is 
in Jesus. If disturbance has arisen, the fault rests 
with those who have become apostles of naturalism 
and who have abandoned the truth “ once delivered 
to the saints.” ‘The attempt to throw responsibil- 
ity for possible. divisions upon evangelicals has its 
counterpart in the story of Ahab and Elijah. 
When Ahab had ignored and despised the truths 
of revealed religion and in wanton disregard for 
justice had caused Naboth to be slain, he went to 
take possession of the vineyard and met Elijah, 
who was the personification of the conscience of 
Israel. What was his exclamation as he addressed 
Elijah? “Art thou he that troubleth Israel? ” 
The confusion and the turmoil which had attended 
the misdoing of Ahab, he sought to attribute to the 


ee — i eens Sn _—-_, 


THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE: 35 


Prophet of Israel. Precisely thus does modernism 
attempt, after an effort to take possession of the 
Church, to throw all obligation for the contro- 
versies of the hour upon those who rightfully 
represent the God of the Bible and the Christ of 
the Gospels. No one can deny that we are facing 
a still more distressing turmoil than has been ex- 
perienced. Let the responsibility rest right where 
it belongs,—upon the leaders in present-day apos- 
tasy. It is as ridiculous and absurd to attribute 
these disorders to those who maintain the tradi- 
tional faith as it would be for a man who should 
put his torch to his neighbour’s house to protest 
because of the turmoil resulting from the presence 
of the fire department. If cleavage is at hand, it 
is because the wedge has been driven in by mod- 
ernism, while at the same time it is clamouring 
lustily for an impossible union. 

It is the boast of modernists: “ We do not care 
a fig whether Christ came through a Virgin or 
not. We have no interest in the Resurrection.” 
We refer such to the words of Lincoln in his con- 
cluding debate with Douglass. He said: “ Doug- 
lass says I do not care whether slavery is voted 
up or down. Is it not a false statesmanship that 
undertakes to build up a system of policy on the 
basis of caring nothing for the very thing that 
everybody else does care the most about?” The 
attitude is neither morally commendable nor in- 
tellectually complimentary. There is also a fine 


- 
Se  —— 


386 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF SILENCE 


parallel between the demand for silence then and 
now. Mr. Lincoln said: “ You must not say any- 
thing about slavery in the free states because it is 
not here. You must not say anything about it in 
the slave States because it is here. You must not 
say anything about it in the pulpit because that is 
religion and has nothing to do with it. You must 
not say anything about it in politics because that 
will disturb the security of my place. There is 
no place to talk about it being a wrong.” Substi- 
tute modernism for “slavery” and you see the 
application. 


V 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS OR THE 
JESUS OF MODERNISM: WHICH? 


SERIOUS arraignment of the decline of 
the Modern Church appears in the exhor- 
tation given at the National Congregational 

Council held in Springfield, in October, 1923. It 
was legitimate and timely. Its need was apparent. 
“Brethren, take Jesus in earnest.” Christ js 
Christianity. Is it possible that departure and 
spiritual lethargy have reached the point where 
such an exhortation to ministers could be appropri- 
ate? The implication was that, with many, Jesus 
Christ had ceased to be a sertous reality. Such a 
condition is amazing and appalling. Such an 
appeal could have no point with reference to those 
who accept the Christ of the Manger, Cross and 
Throne. Evangelicals not alone “take Christ 
seriously,” but vitally. Why the exhortation, 
unless it is recognised that perilous departures are 
necessitating that the Christ of Calvary should 
once more say to His professed followers, ‘ Will 
ye also go away”? 

It is pertinent to inquire, however, who this 
Jesus is whom we are asked to take “ seriously.” 

37 


38 THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 


In answering this question we may find the real 
explanation of the appeal itself. The Jesus of 
modernism is the one we are asked to take in 
earnest: He, from whose crown of glory has been 
plucked the jewel of supernaturalism, by denying 
His virgin birth, His atonement and physical 
resurrection, reducing Him to the proportions of 
an exalted man and no more. He is the Jesus of 
anti-supernaturalism, who has neither power to 
save nor to hold. When we are asked, “ Is loyalty 
to Jesus enough?” we answer, “ That depends 
wholly on who the Jesus is.” Right here is the 
difficulty. Sacred names and words long em- 
ployed, with a perfectly well understood content, 
have been absolutely emptied of their meaning, 
and the unwary are caught in the net of misrepre- 
sentation. In the thought of the world the word 
“Jesus” has for two thousand years had a very 
definite meaning. That Name has meant the 
Christ of the Gospels. It has stood for the super- 
natural, saving Jesus of Revelation. 

Not so at all is the name as used by modernists. 
They do not know of any reliable, trustworthy 
Revelation, all of which is to be received. That is 
why the note of warning needs to be sounded 
clearly. Do not be deceived by the modern use of 
such names as “ Jesus, Redemption, Resurrection, 
Divinity, Son of God,” etc. Christian names and 
pious phrases may mean nothing at all, or they 
may mean everything. But you must know who 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 39 


is using them, and in what sense. The content of 
these words and phrases must accord with the 
perfectly clear Revelation of God and His Word. 
The Jesus of modernism or liberalism is no more 
the Christ of the Gospels than is a magnified man, 
God. Here lies the crux of the whole controversy 
today. The rejection of the Gospel is the rejection 
of the Christ. 

Who, then, is the Jesus of modernism? A Man, 
whose advent was not foretold—the natural prod- 
uct of a progressive evolution. He was not 
supernaturally born. The story of the Annunci- 
ation is false. He was not the only-begotten Son 
of God. He was not the Child of the Virgin 
Mary, but of a Mary of questionable morality. In 
maturity He entered on the work of a reformer. 
His teachings were exaited, but without binding 
authority, other than would be true of any wise 
philosopher or religious teacher who should speak 
from a high, ethical level. He was not infallible. 
He shared the mistaken views of His day. The 
Jesus of modernism did not, and could not, raise 
the dead. He worked no miracles. He died a 
martyr to His high idealism. His death was not 
an atonement for sin. He did not will it, but 
was a victim. His outpoured life on Calvary 
was not expiatory in any sense. He died, was 
entombed and never came forth from the tomb, 
and never will, save as other men. His predic- 
tion, “ Destroy this temple, and in three days I 


40 THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 


3 


will raise it up,” was the dream of an enthusiast 
and never fulfilled. He did not ascend to the 
Throne from whence He came, though He said ~ 
He would do so, in the solemn moment of His 
last prayer. 

Today, He is not a living Christ any more than 
His apostles who died are living apostles. He 
gained a place in the world’s hall of fame, or even 
in the world’s Pantheon, but in no true sense 
was He God. This is the Jesus of modernism!! 
Whence came He? There is absolutely no record 
whatsoever of such a Jesus. The only Jesus his- 
tory knows anything about is the Christ of the 
Gospels. Modernism first blasted away its own 
possible foundations when it repudiated the Gos- 
pels and declared them not inspired and not re- 
liable as a historic record, but merely traditional 
information and full of error. Where, then, 
can they go to find the Jesus of whom they 
talk? No picture of this sort appears in the 
only Book that can possibly tell us anything about 
Jesus. The Jesus of modernism is the creation 
of rationalistic liberalism. He is a creature of 
human imagination, problematical, theoretical, 
speculative, fanciful, unhistoric, non-existent, un- 
real. No wonder such a man is unable to grip 
and hold people who are spiritually intelligent, 
educated, not alone in university training, but in 
the school of the prophets and in the school of 
Christ. 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 41 


We answer unhesitatingly that loyalty to such a 
Jesus is not enough. A higher and holier loyalty 
is demanded, both for salvation and service. What 
could be more indicative of blinding prejudice than 
the claim that scholarship is on the side of the 
denial of the Truth most clearly proclaimed in 
God’s Word? One wonders in what sort of se- 
clusion or self-imposed obscuration one can be 
living, who does not know that there are emi- 
nent scholars among people of all shades of belief 
and unbelief. One outstanding fact, however, is 
this: that evangelical Christianity has the advo- 
cacy of hundreds of men whose intellectual com- 
prehensiveness and mental incisiveness are second 
to none in the world. And these are men who 
believe in a supernatural Christ, including re- 
demption and miracles, and who have faith in 
the Bible as an absolutely infallible guide to eter- 
nal life. 

Contrast all this with the Christ revealed in the 
Gospels, the Epistles, the history of the Church, 
the history of human progress and the Christ of 
personal experience. Look upon the portrait of 
Jesus in the marvelous composite given in the 
Four Gospels, and you will see a picture of the 
only Jesus of which history knows. For a thou- 
sand years the promise of His coming had been 
the inspiring hope of the Chosen People. It was 
the Messianic Star which never dimmed in their 
heaven that led them on. In the fullness of time, 


A2 THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 


prophecies were fulfilled. The long-expected Mes- 
siah appeared. The Virgin Birth proclaimed in 
Isaiah 7:14, ‘‘ Therefore the Lord Himself shall 
give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, 
and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel,” 
was realised. To a sweet virgin of Nazareth came 
the Annunciation of the unprecedented, miracu- 
lous experience through which she was to pass. 
Her startled and timid heart was reassured. She 
did not falter. The Magnificat was her answer, 
and it is also the answer to the unholy caviling 
today, which charges God Almighty with unkind- 
ness in choosing an innocent maiden as His method 
of entering upon His historic life among men. 
Joseph, disturbed, troubled, was accorded the 
fullest of Divine explanation; he accepted it and 
took to himself Mary in holy wedlock. The birth 
of this supernatural Person was attended with 
heavenly choirs at Bethlehem and humble shep- 
herds accepted the angel testimony, “ Unto you is 
born this day in the city of David a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord.” ‘The shepherds found 
and worshipped. Wise men presented their offer- 
ing of gold, frankincense and myrrh, all typical 
and symbolic. 

This Jesus of the Gospels, supernaturally born 
of a virgin in full accord with prediction, passed 
through every variety of human experience, save 
that of yielding to temptation, and reached the age 
of thirty. At the Jordan He was supernaturally 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 43 


accredited by the Eternal Father and entered upon 
His great mission of salvation. Then followed, 
for a period of between two and three years, a 
series of acts and utterances so other-worldly, so 
exalted, so manifestly above the level of humanity, 
that those who heard marvelled and the world has 
continued to marvel for nearly two thousand years 
since. He spake with authority. As honey from 
the honeycomb, so His words dropped from His 
lips, weighted with sweetness and wisdom. He 
wrought miracles, never to satisfy curiosity, but 
always benevolently, and His works of wonder 
were a Divine seal upon the truthworthiness of His 
every act and utterance. He proposed the estab- 
lishment of a Kingdom and the subjugation of the 
world with the single weapon of love. He healed 
the sick, whatever might be their affliction. He 
raised the dead. He cheered the disconsolate. 
He spoke comfortably to the penitent. He de- 
nounced hypocrisy. He reprobated Pharisaism. 
He exposed shams and pretenses. Over and over 
again He contrasted His own personality in its 
source, in its mission and in its destiny with that 
of all men. 

He definitely proclaimed His own mission in 
the world as one of salvation through sacrifice. 
He declared and exercised this power to forgive 
sin, and insisted that He was personally the source 
of Eternal Life. He declared regeneration indis- 
pensable to salvation. His oneness with the 


44 THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 


Father He made perfectly apparent. He reversed 
all ordinary methods of success and proposed to 
win by temporary defeat, to live by dying, to con- 
quer by surrender to the Infinite will. He em- 
phasised the fact of His humanity, and at the same 
time declared unequivocally for His own deity. 
He claimed power to lay down His life and to take 
it again. His moral perfection was manifest in 
His refusal to utter a single vindictive word when 
in the agonies of crucifixion. On the contrary, 
He pled for the forgiveness of His enemies. In 
fulfillment of His promise, “ Destroy this temple, 
and in three days I will raise it up,’ He came 
forth from the tomb attended with marvelous 
manifestations of God’s presence and power. His 
enemies had made any deception impossible. By 
His resurrection He sealed as forever true the 
statement He had already made, “I am the resur- 
rection and the life.’ Those most intimately 
associated with Him in life, before His cruci- 
fixion, fellowshiped with Him, ate with Him, 
and were unanimously convinced that His resur- 
rection was a reality. In the presence of His 
disciples He uttered His final word of commis- 
sion, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth.” He dis- 
appeared supernaturally, with the promise of re- 
turn in triumph and victory. He went from 
whence He had come, to be forever a living, 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS AB 


regnant, intercessory Lord of glory and Saviour 
of mankind. 

This is the only Jesus of whom we have any 
historic record. ‘This is the Christ of the Manger, 
the Cross, the Throne, the Resurrection, the As- 
cension, Pentecost and the Christian Church. 
Under the holy spell of this same Jesus, the Church 
inaugurated in the upper room was established and 
re-enforced at Pentecost. Under the inspiring fel- 
lowship of the Risen Lord the little band of dis- 
ciples faced without flinching the most terrible 
persecutions and the most unspeakable martyrdoms. 
They were daring and determined. This is the 
Christ who appeared to Saul of Tarsus, accom- 
plished his conversion and secured his allegiance. 
Under the sacred afflatus of the spirit of this 
Christ, he became at once, and still is, next to 
Jesus, the incomparable personality among the sons 
of men. This is the Jesus who placed the aureole 
upon the brow of childhood, sanctified and emanci- 
pated womanhood, smote the shackles from slaves 
and faced multitudes of humanity heavenward. 
This Christ has led untold millions of the sons of 
men from sin to righteousness, from despair to 
hope, from weakness to strength. To this super- 
natural, Divine Lord is due the world’s uplift 
morally, politically and spiritually. 

Because and only because men have known 
Christ as a Saviour, who saves both from the 
guilt of sin and the love of sinning, have pioneers 


46 THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 


braved wilderness-perils to proclaim a redemption 
which actually redeems. How differently would 
the history of our country have read had not such 
men as Peter Cartwright, and that famous group 
known as the “ Iowa Band,” and hundreds of 
noble, consecrated men, been willing to leave splen- 
did churches and large salaries to go into the wil- 
derness and proclaim God’s good tidings! Whole 
communities were cleaned up and transformed, 
through the lifting up of the Christ of Calvary as 
the one and only hope of salvation and eternal life. 
Can you conceive of men prompted by merely 
ethical considerations, such as the Jesus of mod- 
ernism presents, being willing to make the sacri- 
fices involved in Christianising frontiers? What 
Committees of Safety could not accomplish with 
the hangman’s rope, was easily achieved by the 
Gospel of Grace through living witnesses for 
Christ. 

Nothing during the past hundred years has been 
more mightily significant in the world’s uplift than 
Christian Missions. What inspired them? What 
mighty motive inspired the leaders of the great 
Moravian missions, or of the English missionary 
societies, or of a multitude of great denominational 
missionary movements in our own country? What 
accounts for the “inner urge’”’ which led young 
men by hundreds to abandon prospects of wealth 
and set aside literary and professional aspirations 
and go to the remote regions of the earth? Can 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS AT 


you point to a single great missionary movement 
instigated by liberalism? Nota single one. Ques- 
tions of mere improvement do not lead to the 
heroic sacrifices made by men like Livingstone, 
Judson, Mills, Paton, Taylor and hundreds like 
them. It was because these men saw in Jesus 
Christ the One Redemptive Power in the world 
that they went with heart yearning to lead the be- 
nighted to light and life. This is the explanation 
of the martyrdoms suffered in African jungles, 
mountains of the Caucasus, Indian solitudes and 
the most remote districts of the world. It was 
under this tremendous spiritual compulsion that 
the Hawaiian Church was organised in the Park 
Street Church Chapel, Boston, by men and women 
ready to embark on the hazardous enterprise of 
Christianising the people of the Hawaiian Islands. 
Is it at all conceivable that men would face the 
gleaming spearpoints of cannibals in the New 
Hebrides for any other reason than to make the 
Christ of Calvary known to lost souls? It is an 
incontrovertible fact that the presentation of the 
Jesus of liberalism awakens but a languid interest, 
and develops a religion of convenience and comfort 
on the material side. 

Salvation through regeneration lies at the core 
of the Christian doctrine. Christ’s pronouncement 
is neither ambiguous nor equivocal. “‘ Ye must be 
born again.” Twice Born Men, written by Harold 
Begbie, is illustrative of the actual experience of 


48 THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 


hundreds of millions of people since the Christ of 
the Cross made His great sacrifice to save sinners 
and redeem the lost. In an experience of thirty- 
nine years in the ministry, I have yet to find one 
solitary individual who would say: “I had fallen 
into the sinks of iniquity, was hopeless and de- 
spairing; liberalism came to me with its doctrine 
of salvation through character and I was em- 
powered thereby to throw off the evil habits which 
had fastened upon me, and to rid myself of the 
sense of guilt which preyed upon my conscience. 
I experienced complete emancipation and know 
myself to be a saved man.’ Until the Jesus of 
modernism is effective in leading at least one soul 
to say, “I have found salvation, hope and eternal 
life through this unhistoric creation of human 
theory and human philosophy,” he can lay no great 
claim to humanity’s acceptance and faith. The 
drift away from the supernatural Christ leads, 
logically, to appalling consequences. A College 
President recently testified that he heard a min- 
ister who occupies a Congregational pulpit say in 
substance in a Chicago ministers’ meeting, “I have 
reached the conclusion that Jesus was not intel- 
lectually infallible nor morally perfect.” The 
Christ whom evangelicals know is both intellect- 
ually infallible, morally perfect and “equal with 
the Father” in wisdom, power and glory. The 
wife of a Congregational Pastor said, recently: 
“What a pity that Jesus, so kind and gentle, could 


THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS 49 


not have had the advantage of one of our modern 
universities.” It is quite the fashion to pity Paul 
for his limited vision and lament that the Apos- 
tles could not have had the benefits of the counsel 
of the wise men of today. All this is simply pitiful. 
It reveals an utter lack of appreciation of the intel- 
lectual pre-eminence of a Spirit-filled mind and 
heart. Right here is the weakness of the academic 
viewpoint. 


VI 


THE IMPREGNABLE FORTRESS OF 
REVELATION 


HRISTIANITY needs no apologetic. It is 
consistent with itself. Its historic position 
is absolutely assured. As well might you 

undertake to defend the beauty of the diamond by 
argument and by reasoning, and insist upon the 
splendour of its imprisoned sunlight, as to attempt 
to prove Christianity’s worth to the world. It is 
the brightest and most lustrous jewel of truth the 
world has ever known. Its perpetual radiation of 
the wisdom and power of God Almighty is a 
declaration of its Divine vitality and its unmeas- 
ured value. The sun which for centuries has 
lighted the world, assuring seed time and harvest, 
bringing to the eye of man nature’s marvels of 
beauty and treasures of wisdom, has a splendour 
independent of age and requires no argument or 
explanation in evidence of its value to humanity. 
Much more may it be said, that the Sun of Right- 
eousness, Who for nineteen hundred years has 
been shedding His light upon humanity, is in no 
slightest need of human advocacy in support of 
His value to the sons of men. 


50 





FORTRESS OF REVELATION 51 


Next to Jesus Christ Himself, the Bible is God’s 
greatest gift to the world. Nothing could ever 
endure severer tests, harsher criticism, or greater 
opposition than has the Bible. It offers itself to 
humanity as a true record of God’s unveiling of 
himself to man. Covering a period of more than 
a thousand years, containing sixty-six divisions, 
presenting truth through a great variety of human 
personalities, it presents a unity of purpose, an 
inherent consistency, an undiminished vitality abso- 
lutely inexplicable on any other basis than that it 
was given to the world under the superintendence 
and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Bible claims 
for itself full and final authority respecting the 
duties of man. Origin and destiny are clearly and 
unequivocally defined and stated in terms which, 
except through wilfulness, can not be misunder- 
stood or misinterpreted. Its demands, commands, 
exhortations and appeals run counter to the natural 
desires of man, and, as might be expected, have 
from the first met with opposition and antagon- 
ism. The Word of God is so opposed to human 
pride and so severely censures arrogance, pre- 
sumption and conceit, that the most determined 
opposition has been met from those who advo- 
cate that every man should have the privilege 
of following what is right in his own eyes. The 
denial of the authority of the Bible is to be 
expected in a world filled with pride, wickedness 
and wilfulness. Since Christianity is rooted in 


52 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


Revelation it is not surprising that violent per- 
secution, unrelenting opposition, unreasoning de- 
nunciation have attended its development. The 
ten great persecutions of the Roman Empire seek- 
ing to obliterate every trace of revealed religion 
ignominiously failed. Out of each successive or- 
deal the Bible arose to support and propagate 
truth Divinely communicated, and Christianity, 
buttressed and sustained by the Divine Book, 
grew constantly stronger. The Bible has under- 
gone the fire test of human hate, in every pos- 
sible expression of malignity, but like the bush 
in the desert which startled the great lawgiver 
and deliverer of Israel, Moses, ‘‘ because it burned 
with fire and was not consumed,” the Bible has 
proven itself capable of enduring the trial by 
fire and has come out of every furnace of per- 
secution without diminution or loss, and, if pos- 
sible, more glowingly resplendent, after each trial 
by fire. 

Not less successful has the Word of God been 
in the acid test of criticism. It has met every 
conceivable objection and every criticism which 
the genius of opposing intellectuals could apply and 
it has come forth with no scar upon its face, win- 
ning the approval of increasing multitudes and the 
heartiest support of the most pre-eminent intel- 
lectual lights of every generation. As though the 
fire test and the acid test were not sufficient, the 
Bible has been subjected also to the severest of 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 53 


all trials, the time test. A book which will endure 
through nineteen hundred years of opposition of 
every conceivable sort and not only hold its own, 
but steadily increase in the reverence, the love and 
the trust of hundreds of millions of people, is not 
a book to have the slightest fear of attack from 
new angles. There is no form of opposition which 
has been practiced in the past which is not to be 
found in modernism. More crafty, more sophis- 
tical, more plausible than ever before, arguments 
are being multiplied by modernists against the re- 
liability and trustworthiness of the Bible as a 
Divine Revelation. With respect to the Bible, the 
modernist is like a man standing before a plate- 
glass window through which may be seen a marvel- 
ous landscape with endless variety of beauty to 
entrance and instruct him, but who spends his time 
inveighing against the makers of the plate-glass, 
because of some fancied flaw upon which he is 
concentrating his attention. Instead of hearing 
the beating pulse of the Infinite, in the Book of 
God; instead of following the scarlet thread of 
promise running from Genesis to Revelation, pro- 
claiming sacrificial love for humanity; instead of 
looking into the face of the Christ of the Gospels 
as the world’s Redeemer, modernism occupies it- 
self with fancied contradictions, with reasons why 
the Bible is merely a human book, and with the 
grounds of its rejection as a truly Inspired Word 
of God. 


54 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


Is this a laudable occupation? Is it worthy of 
men created in the image of God? What benefit 
to humanity is likely to accrue from this process 
which would tear to shreds the seamless robe of 
Revelation if it could; which would blast out and 
destroy the foundations of the great fortress of 
truth? Nothing has been more futile than the 
Devil’s dynamite. It has not been able to dis- 
lodge a single stone in God Almighty’s splendid 
cathedral of truth. Detonation and smoke have 
deceived and misled many. Modernism mega- 
phones its destructive propaganda and the people 
are led to believe it is vastly more extended in its 
influence than it really is. Its smoke-screen of 
sophistry has sufficed temporarily to hide from the 
unlettered the great, immovable mountain peaks of 
inspired Truth. Nevertheless, these stand like 
Alpine heights sun-crowned, immovable, un- 
changeable. Why, then, should we waste time 
in a consideration of modernism? It certainly 
is not because we have the slightest question as 
to the ultimate outcome. Honest criticism and 
inquiry is to be ever welcomed and even ap- 
plauded. Faith must have rational foundations. 
Evangelicals above all other classes of people are 
ready “To give a reason for the hope that is in 
them.” Instead of disparaging the human intel- 
lect, we glory in those powers of inquiry and of 
investigation with which we have been endowed 
by God Almighty, and which in the realm of 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 55 


religion should be exercised forcefully, fearlessly 
and sincerely. 

“The Gospel is either true history, or it is a 
consummate fraud; it is either a reality or an im- 
position. Christ was what He professed to be, or 
He was an impostor. There is no other alternative. 
Fis spotless life, in His earnest enforcement of the 
truth, His suffering in its defense, forbid us to 
suppose that He was suffering an illusion of a 
heated brain. Every act of His pure and holy life 
shows that He was the author of truth, the advo- 
cate of truth, the earnest defender of truth and 
the uncompromising sufferer for truth. Now, con- 
sidering the purity of His doctrines, the simplicity 
of His life and the sublimity of His death, is it 
possible that He would have died for an illusion? ” 
So wrote Daniel Webster. 

Never in the history of the world has the Bible 
exercised a greater influence than today. It is 
distributed in various parts of the world, in more 
than seven hundred languages and dialects, and the 
urgent demand for translations into new tongues 
is constant. The issues of all Bible Societies are 
at the rate of thirty million volumes of Scripture 
a year, and it is estimated that more than six hun- 
dred million volumes of the Bible, in whole or in 
part, have been issued since the art of printing 
became known. Today, it is far and away the 
greatest selling book in the world. It stands at 
the basis of the laws of all civilised governments. 


56 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


It has always been recognised as a moral influence 
in every community where it is read, beyond that 
of all other influences combined. It is quite the 
fashion today to applaud its literary merits, and at 
the same time deny its inspired origin. Such ap- 
plause counts for absolutely nothing. Great as is 
its literary merit, this is not the supreme thing 
about the Bible; nor could this explain in any 
degree its tremendous hold upon the mind of man. 
It is the one book sought for comfort by the be- 
reaved, for counsel by the repentant and for hope 
by the disheartened. The Bible, and it alone, fur- 
nishes a pillow for the dying, and unerring counsel 
for the living. 

Modernism is absolutely incapable of giving any 
adequate explanation for the grip of the Bible on 
the heart of the world. To evangelicals it is per- 
fectly explicable, for it is accepted as God’s gift to 
men, representing the supreme idealism of the ages 
and defining the purpose of a Loving Father for 
a lost world. No other explanation can possibly 
meet the requirement. The Old Testament has the 
unqualified endorsement of Jesus Christ Who over 
and over again presented Himself as the fulfill- 
ment of its prophecies and declared unmistakably 
the credibility and genuineness of its utterances. 
The New Testament was, under Divine Inspira- 
tion, written by witnesses of what Jesus was, said 
and did, or by those who were intimately ac- 
quainted with men in the closest fellowship with 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 57 


Jesus Christ. Among these writers were unlettered 
fishermen, who, notwithstanding their unfamiliar- 
ity with the highest secular learning of their day, 
wrote so far above the level of the times that 
while nearly all contemporaneous literature is 
either wholly forgotten, or at most read by but 
few, the inspired records of the fishermen of Gali- 
lee and their associates in the production of the 
New Testament Scriptures, occupy the chief place 
in the thinking of today. 

It is utterly foolish to attempt to explain away 
the supernatural origin, Divine preservation and 
universal influence of this book. Yet it all be- 
comes perfectly natural when we accept the fact 
of the Bible as the Inspired Word of God hold- 
ing a fixed place in the Redemptive program of 
God Almighty. It is equally idle to undertake to, 
divorce the Bible from its actual authors and es- 
tablish for its various books a late date. We 
have not only copies of the manuscripts of the 
Bible itself accepted by the best authority as reli- 
able, but we have numerous quotations attesting to 
the fact that the New Testament was well known 
and widely read from the very period of the 
Apostles. 

Polycarp was a pupil of St. John, Papias was a 
disciple of Polycarp and Justin Martyr was born 
ten years before John’s death. All of these men 
were familiar with all the Books of the New 
Testament and quoted from them. ‘Tertullian in 


58 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


the second century, Clement in the year 194, 
Irenzus, the learned Origen, Gregory and Dio- 
nysius of Alexandria, all used the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures liberally. Origen quotes 5,745 
passages and Tertullian more than 3,000 pas- 
sages from all the books of the New ‘Testament. 
Clement quotes 380 passages and Irenzus quotes 
767 passages. 

In writing just one letter Polycarp, who was a 
disciple of John, uses thirty-six quotations from 
the Scriptures. How ridiculous in the face of 
these facts to attempt to prove that the Gospels and 
Epistles were written centuries after the Apostles 
had passed away. In the fourth century eleven 
catalogues of the books of the New Testament 
were made, and they include exactly the books of 
our own New ‘Testament. The fact is, for the 
first four or five centuries, the authenticity of the 
Books of the New Testament was assumed by all 
writers. Even the opponents of Christianity did 
not in the early centuries presume to call in ques- 
tion the authenticity of any of the books. In 361 
Julian the Apostate used all his power of learning 
to undermine Christianity, but accepted the New 
Testament writings as too well known to be ques- 
tioned, as authentic, and concedes the correctness 
of their assigned dates. 

The same is true of Porphyry and Celsus and 
other infidel writers. There are the most suf- 
ficient reasons for accepting the Bible as God’s 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 59 


Word. As such it is credible, authentic, genuine, 
reliable. 

The Bible is the crux of the whole present-day 
controversy. Is it the Word of God? Has it a 
right to speak to us commandingly? May it 
properly exercise authority over the conscience? 
Are its commandments obligatory? Are its coun- 
sels a part of Infinite wisdom? Are its facts 
properly attested? 

The evangelical position regarding the Bible is 
often misunderstood. ‘There are extremists in all 
departments of religious thinking. Evangelicals 
accept without question the fact that the Bible pre- 
sents to us an inspired Revelation. It is a record 
of God’s dealings with mankind. It is a definite 
expression of the will of God. It deals with the 
development of a distinctive religion through a 
period of more than a thousand years. It is 
enough to say that taken in its entirety the Bible 
is genuine, authentic, trustworthy; and as a rule 
of faith and practice, infallible. By infallibility 
we mean it is absolutely without error as a guide to 
eternal life. And this is true of the Bible just as 
we have it today. In process of transmission there 
is not the slightest doubt that trifling and unim- 
portant errors in words, phrases and punctuation 
have occurred. When we say the Bible is Inspired 
we mean that the agents used of God for the trans- 
mission to the world of the expression of His holy 
will were Divinely guided and superintended. In- 


60 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


dividuality and personality, while subordinated, 
were not eliminated. When we speak of inerrancy 
the average evangelical means that the Bible is 
absolutely free from all mistakes in matters of 
spiritual direction.. It is to be absolutely trusted 
and the facts which are presented are not myth- 
ical but actual. The characters of the Bible are 
historic, except when otherwise represented, as 
for example in parables and illustrative examples. 
The authors of the series of revelations were 
Divinely selected and actuated in their thinking 
and writing by the Holy Spirit. They were in 
all cases competent to perform the tasks as- 
signed them, either because of immediate ac- 
quaintance with the facts presented or because of 
the trustworthy reception of truth revealed to 
them. We are not to think of them as mere 
amanuenses receiving dictation, but as intelligent 
men acting under Divine: influence to present to 
the world Divine truth. There is nothing fan- 
tastic about it and no more of mystery than there 
is in the spiritual relationships which subsist when 
the wisdom of man is controlled by the wisdom 
of God. 

No greater evidence of the fact of Divine super- 
intendence and direction could be given than the 
fact that these men spake so far above the intel- 
lectual and spiritual level of their own times. 
Educated men recognise that the Bible is not to be 
compared with contemporary literature, but con- 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 61 


trasted with it, in its exalted moral idealism and 
its definite spiritual insight. 

Another evidence of the inspiration of the Bible 
is its indestructible vitality. All the ingenuity of 
man has at times been Loncentrated on an effort 
to eliminate this Book from the face of the earth. 
All that human hate could accomplish, all that 
political and social force could do, all that incar- 
nate wickedness could express have invariably 
failed even to halt the progress of the multiplication 
and distribution of God’s Word. All we know of 
the New Testament writers makes certain that they 
must have received truth from higher than human 
sources in order to have given to the world such 
exalted messages of Divine purpose and love. 
They had no unusual natural equipment, and some 
of them had not enjoyed the privileges even of 
rudimentary schools. We should expect from 
them, therefore, just what we find,—an entire 
absence of everything in the nature of intrigue and 
conspiracy, an innocent frankness and faithful 
portrayal of just what they knew. ‘There is not 
one thing to indicate that they were the victims of 
any deception, and still less reason to believe that 
they were governed by some ulterior motive. The 
Gospels are narratives of events which were wit- 
nessed and well attested, and all of which trans- 
pired before the eyes of the disciples. In the Book 
of Acts the experiences of the Early Church are 
presented in a manner to assure complete confidence 


62 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


in the wisdom and purpose of the narrator, to give 
us the truth without gloss and without modifica- 
tion. From a human standpoint the master-mind 
of the New Testament is Paul. His profound 
scholarship qualified him to develop the teachings, 
the doing and the dying of Jesus into important 
doctrinal propositions. In all this the evangelicals 
unhesitatingly declare that the true Author of the 
New Testament is the Holy Ghost. Indeed, they 
affirm that this is true of the entire Bible, and the 
only explanation of the marvelous unity it presents, 
and its freedom from contradictions of such nature 
as would invalidate its reliability. We believe the 
statements of the Gospels are worthy of the fullest 
credence. 

The supreme and outstanding thing about the 
Bible is the fact that a reverent and unbiased mind 
everywhere beholds in it the face of Jesus Christ. 
Evangelicals do not regard it, therefore, as merely 
a book of facts, data and ethical teaching. We find 
it a living thing, pulsating with life, which is none 
other than the life of the Saviour of the world. 
To us it has heart beat, temple throb, sanctifying 
breath and healing touch. It is bound together 
part to part with the scarlet thread of promise and 
sacrifice. We find the Old Testament the revela- 
tion of a covenant between God and man. We find, 
moreover, at the very beginning, in the third chap- 
ter of Genesis, the promise of a coming Messiah. 
“The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 63 


head.” Beginning with that promise we find hun- 
dreds of definite prophetic assurances, with por- 
traiture, daring in its detail, and risking all upon 
the inevitable fulfillment of every distinct feature 
of the picture. With all the accuracy with which 
a cornerstone fits its appointed place, or a keystone 
its position in the arch, does the New Testament 
fit into the Old. Mortise and tenon never more 
perfectly matched than does prophecy match ful- 
fillment in the Bible. We find no place, therefore, 
for the accidental or the coincidental. All is 
providential. 

Now contrast this with modernism. Modernism 
finds both the Old and New Testaments a series of 
distinctively human documents. There is no Divine 
element to be discovered other than attaches to the 
writings of any earnest men. Tradition, folklore, 
imagination, theory, speculation, but no Holy 
Ghost. superintendence and no infallible rule of 
faith and practice. Modernism discovers no pro- 
phetic annunciations of the coming of a Redeemer 
in the Old Testament. The characters there por- 
trayed are not for the most part historic, but 
imaginary and employed exactly as the characters 
in a parable are employed. The element of un- 
reality becomes thus more pronounced than the 
element of reality. In the New Testament modern- 
ism recognises here and there important pronounce- 
ments and especially applauds the teachings of 
Jesus, which, however, are logically made uncertain 


64 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


from the deliberate surgery practiced on every un- 
desirable part of the New Testament, eliminating 
it at will. Not for one moment does modernism 
regard the Bible as authoritative in its commands. 
It becomes, therefore, purely a matter of individual 
acceptance or non-acceptance, the Bible subjected 
wholly to human judgment. Commandments are 
softened down to counsel. 

The convictions of evangelicals regarding the 
Bible rest on the surest evidence and the sanest 
reasoning. The preservation, protection, distri- 
bution and powerful influence of the Word of God 
are facts striking and well nigh miraculous. It is 
impossible to read such works as Urquhart’s The 
Bible, Its Structure and Purpose, or Bateman’s 
Romance of the Bible, or histories of the Christian 
Church, without being convinced that God has had 
a hand in carrying to the ends of the earth His own 
Book. Instead of diminishing, the call for its 
multiplication increases with every passing year. 
This is because it meets the wants of man as 
nothing else can meet them. Studied from the 
standpoint of its effect, the Bible is absolutely 
unique. What other book could be taken to half- 
civilised races and advance them with startling 
rapidity to a position of honour among the highly 
civilised and cultured people of the world? It has 
transformed communities, tribes and races from 
men and women, semi-savage, into cultured and 
refined peoples. Moreover in individual life its 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 65 


effect is not less apparent. When studied with a 
sincere desire to know the truth and obey it, the 
Bible exercises an influence resulting in ethical ele- 
vation, spiritual aspiration and character formation 
which cannot be gainsaid nor can it be explained 
on any other basis than that it contains for the 
mind of man a message from God. 

With all its learning, modernism can offer no 
substitute for this Holy Book. ‘There is not the 
slightest ground to doubt that this Inspired Book 
has been the dominant cause of human progress 
from the moment it began to be distributed as 
Christianity’s authoritative declaration of faith. 
Modernism is utterly unable to explain why it 1s 
that the Bible produces the results it does. There 
are other sacred books. ‘There are many books 
with a spiritual objective, yet no one thinks of 
comparing the Bible with any other book ever 
written. Could any work of fiction or any chi- 
merical scheme of human reformation and uplift 
hold the center of the stage through generations 
and for centuries? Yet what constitutes the con- 
trast, the real difference between the Bible and 
other books? ‘The answer is plain,—it is God’s 
Word, not alone to humanity as a whole, but to 
each individual who will receive it, meeting every 
need at every period of life, from the cradle to 
the grave. 

Its main truths are intelligible to childhood; they 
hold a spell over the mind of a child and mould it 


66 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


for righteousness. Youth with its ambitions and 
impulses finds that the Bible gives poise and pur- 
pose, exercises restraint and arouses compulsion 
which leads to success. Old age turns to it for 
consolation, for.assurance, and for final prepara- 
tion for the great adventure. In health it presents 
avenues making the investment of energy worth 
while. In sickness it connects us with the Great 
Physician. In sorrow it is a rest and peace which 
no other book even pretends to offer. When re- 
morse rests heavy on the heart on account of 
misdeeds, the Bible is the one Book which offers 
the restoration of a broken and lost fellowship, 
awakens courage and leads to a renewal of effort 
in the highest self-realisation. None of these 
things would be true, if you reduce the Bible to 
the level of a human production. It is all because 
of its unquestionable inspiration and its unfailing © 
trustworthiness as the Word of God, that the Bible 
makes its contribution to human need. 

How about the next world? Who knows any- 
thing about it? What is the source of our infor- 
mation? If the Bible is not God’s Revelation fully 
inspired, then no one in God’s universe knows one 
thing about the future life. Throw out the Bible, 
as God’s Word, and no one has one particle of 
positive assurance of a life of felicity beyond the 
grave. “The Land of the Leal” is illusory, 
imaginary, only a dream, unless God has positively 
and unequivocally spoken. But He has. The only 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 67 


gateway modernism can place before a man who is 
facing the future life is an interrogation point. 
What really consolatory word can modernism 
speak to the dying? It knows nothing of a com- 
plete salvation through an Atoning Sacrifice. It 
can, therefore, give no positive assurance of the 
forgiveness of sin. What a dreary and desolate 
thing the Bible itself becomes, after it leaves the 
hand of the modernist. Its song is changed from 
a Davidic to a Jeremiad, from a melody of joy to 
a gloomy dirge. The mighty current of truth 
being poured into the world by the Bible Societies, 
through the channels offered by distinctively evan- 
gelical institutions, will tear asunder any dam that 
may be temporarily thrown across its current. You 
can no more stop this Amazon of revelation from 
irrigating the world than a child could stop the 
Amazon River with a blow-pipe. No effort is 
more futile than that of modernism to disrupt or 
destroy the “ Impregnable Rock of Holy Scrip- 
ture.” All the efforts of unbelief, under whatever 
guise or name, have not succeeded in making even 
the slightest dent upon this imposing Matterhorn 
of Revelation. You can no more stop the steady, 
persistent, onward movement of God’s Holy Word 
than you can stop the advance of an avalanche with 
an alpine pike staff, or the advance of an ocean 
tide with the sand barricade builded by children on 
the beach. 

Many are being led to believe that the findings 


68 . FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


of science make impossible and irrational the ac- 
ceptance of the Bible as the Word of God. This 
is done, however, by mere assertion and not by one 
particle of actual evidence. We are being told that 
the discovery of ancient manuscripts has changed 
the attitude of scholars toward the Bible. Refer- 
ence is made to the discoveries of Tischendorf and 
others which have led to new translations and the 
corrections of many former errors. Now what 
are the facts? The gratifying and even startling 
facts are that not one single doctrine of Christian- 
ity has been affected one iota or changed in the 
slightest degree by any revelations of ancient 
manuscripts. A book which has recently issued 
from the press, Here and There Among the Papyri, 
is fascinating in the story it tells about the uncover- 
ing of manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts. 
It reveals to us the fact that we have many thou- 
sands of these papyri and translations by the hun- 
dreds making clear to us the habits and practices in 
common life as far back as the third and fourth 
centuries before Christ. Many New Testament 
quotations are presented, almost the entire first 
chapter of Matthew, and yet in all this accumulated 
information not one syllable from first to last would 
lead to the slightest revision of the traditional doc- 
trines of the Church of Christ. 

Precisely the same result is noted in all depart- 
ments of archzological research. One of the more 
recent works, Archeology and the Bible, tells a 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 69 


surprising story of the discovery of ancient libra- 
ries, but insofar as these discoveries relate to the 
Bible they are invariably in corroboration of it 
and never in contradiction. What, then, becomes 
of all this talk about discrediting the Bible through 
the pronouncements of science and, recent discoy- 
eries? There is absolutely nothing in it. Nothing 
could be more deceptive or misleading than talk 
along these lines. The claim is unfounded and 
wholly untrue. Happily all this information is 
available to every student of the Word of God. 
Such men as Prof. Sayce speak authoritatively and 
with a positiveness not to be misunderstood; they 
declare that while new light has been thrown upon 
many uncertain facts recorded in Scripture the 
result has been to make more sure the truth, of 
every nature, revealed in Holy Writ. With these 
incontrovertible facts before us, why should we 
permit modernism to go unchallenged in its effort 
to discredit the Bible as the Word of God? The 
foundations stand sure. ‘They are unshakeable, 
immovable. We can rest absolutely certain that 
not one jot or tittle of Holy Scripture will fall 
or fail. 

If a new alignment is inevitable, we need have 
no regrets that the hour has come for dissipating 
the fog which modernism has caused to rest upon 
the Christian world by its obscurations, its evasions, 
its negations and positive denials. 

It is time to build the altar and place the sacrifice 


70 FORTRESS OF REVELATION 


and let the old time scene be repeated while the 
priests of Baal make their futile cry and Elijah 
again breathes his prayer of faith. We can well 
afford to accept the consequences. ‘“‘ The God that 
answereth by fire, let him be God.” No believer in 
Jesus Christ as “ the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world” can longer be silent 
without guilt. 

Modernism is illogical and inconsistent in the — 
extreme. It denies the trustworthiness of the Bible 
in one breath and in the next quotes it'in support 
of some favourite proposition. It deals recklessly 
with all the criteria of truth. It is adrift on an 
open sea without chart or compass. It depends 
upon theory for fact and arbitrarily throws out the 
best attested truths simply because they do not fit 
into its own predetermined scheme of things. Its 
intense concern for recentness betrays it into the 
strangest misconceptions and misinterpretations. I 
am persuaded that a majority of the most cultured 
and best educated people are heartily opposed to 
the present-day anti-supernatural drift with its 
Gospel of doubt and denial. It is all so unreal and 
so subversive of soul interest. It is as full of peril 
to the spiritual life as is poison gas to the body. 
Thousands have become inoculated with the virus 
of unbelief and no longer find that peace of mind 
and that food for mind and heart which alone can 
insure the realisation of the highest spiritual ideals. 
Nothing more completely expresses the painful ex- 


FORTRESS OF REVELATION 71 


perience of a soul whose faith has lapsed than the 
sentiment of the following hymn: 


“ How tedious and tasteless the hours 

When Jesus no longer I see. 

Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers 
Have all lost their sweetness to me. 

The midsummer’s sun shines but dim, 
The fields strive in vain to look gay, 

But when I am happy in Him 

December's as pleasant as May.” 


“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my 
word shall never pass away.” ‘Trust it; love it; 
live it. It is the truth that lifts humanity to the 
heights. 


VII 
THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


UST now the question of the Virgin Birth of 
Christ is right in the forefront of religious 
controversy. Probably the explanation is to 

be found in two facts. It is the easiest approach 
to the question of the Deity of Christ, and can be 
attacked with the assurance that popular prejudice 
can easily be aroused in support of opposition to 
the doctrine. Secondly, because as an entering 
wedge to the denial of Biblical authority and the 
Deity of Christ, it is likely to arouse less suspicion 
than an out and out pronouncement against the 
great doctrines of the Church, which, however, 
stand or fall with the truth or untruth of the Virgin 
Birth, At any rate, the question is definitely 
before us. | 

The Biblical position is so unmistakable, so un- 
compromising, so unequivocal, so commanding, 
that to accept the Gospels at their face value neces- 
sitates acceptance of the Virgin Birth. If language 
has any definite meaning whatsoever, then Matt. 
1: 18-24 leaves not the slightest room to doubt the 
Virgin Birth of Christ. Equally forceful and ex- 
plicit is the statement of Luke, Luke 1: 26-38. The 


72 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 73 


genuineness, the authenticity, the credibility and 
the trustworthiness of these two Gospels are 
doubted by no one who believes in the Gospels in 
any true sense or belief. The authors are regarded 
as sane men, fully competent to record facts and 
to witness to the facts recorded, as worthy of 
credence by everybody. One of two things must 
happen,—either the Virgin Birth must be accepted 
or the Gospels denied the right to complete recog- 
nition. Exactly this is the situation that confronts 
us. Evangelicals hold without a doubt to the stu- 
pendous fact of the Incarnation as here narrated, 
while modernists arbitrarily select such portions of 
the Gospels as their preconceived notions allow 
them to believe, and reject the remainder. If 1n- 
consistency ever had complete demonstration it has 
it in this wilful, groundless, irrational ecclecticism. 
With all the ardour of positiveness we find mod- 
ernists quoting from Matthew and Luke, though 
logically they have invalidated every statement of 
both Gospels by the repudiation of sections as 
well accredited as any other part of the Bible. 
Sanity, seriousness, logic, all the laws of think- 
ing, all the requirements of evidence, all the cri- 
teria of truth demand either an acceptance of a 
fact so clearly stated that it cannot be misunder- 
stood, given without an “if” or a “but’’; or, a 
frank declaration that the whole Gospel is a matter 
of conjecture, and, as history, unreliable. 
Modernists with much show of learning talk 


74 THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


about the later discoveries of science as prohibitive 
of acceptance of the fact of the supernatural birth 
of Christ. What science? What pronouncement 
has science of any kind when we enter the realm 
of the divinely revealed? What could be more 
unscientific than to declare that a Personality so 
unlike any other the world has ever seen that He 
has to be contrasted with all the rest of humanity; 
in wisdom, moral perfection, commanding power 
of personality so great that He stands forth in 
isolated grandeur, when contrasted with the noblest 
and the best, is simply a human product coming 
through ordinary process of generation, and can 
be accounted for on the basis of heredity alone? 
On a scientific basis, where causes and effects are 
interpreted on the basis of fixed laws, Christ is 
absolutely inexplicable and impossible. On the 
naturalistic hypothesis no such character could be 
factual. Approaching the sacred circle circum- 
scribed about Jesus Christ, science stops, mute, 
dumb, or closes its eyes and denies that there is 
any reality beyond the natural order. Real science 
calmly recognises the limitations of its wisdom, 
and makes no attempt to prescribe in the realm of 
the supernatural Christ. 

Science does not even pretend to deal with the 
question of the Virgin Birth. It deals with the 
inexplicable and accountable facts of nature. The 
Virgin Birth is readily conceded as wholly super- 
natural by evangelicals, notwithstanding Huxley’s 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 75 


statement that this Virgin Birth is entirely possible 
on naturalistic grounds; in spite of this, I say, we 
accept it solely on the authority of Revelation, and 
as a necessary corollary of Redemption. 

It may appropriately be stated anew that not one 
discrediting word is spoken by recovered codexes 
or deciphered papyri, gathered from the accumu- 
lated sands of the centuries, concerning the nativity 
accounts of Matthew and Luke. The oldest re- 
covered manuscripts that contain these Gospels 
never omit even a sentence of the story of Christ’s 
supernatural birth. What is this new light that 
forbids further confidence in this statement of fact 
regarding the Human beginning of the Human 
Life of God? Is it light at all? Is it not, rather, 
deliberate denial of the great truth which compels 
acceptance of the whole redemptive programme of 
Jesus Christ? Once accept the supernatural birth 
and you are irresistibly led on to belief in the 
Atonement and the Resurrection, both of which 
require a recognition of the sinfulness of sin and 
the reality of judgment. The denial of the Virgin 
Birth leads inevitably to a denial of the true Deity 
of Christ. On the other hand, acceptance of the 
fact so clearly set forth in two Gospels makes the 
Deity of Christ sure beyond a peradventure. 

The Virgin Birth was prophesied: “The Lord 
himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall 
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name 
Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14. From the very first pre- 


76 THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


diction of Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity 
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,” to the end 
of the Old Testament we have not alone repeated 
predictions and elaborate descriptions which make 
the Virgin Birth and the redemptive work of 
Christ only the fulfilment of prophecy, but we 
have also the fact that the Old Testament is 
symbolic. The Talmud truly says, “All the 
prophets prophesied only of the days of the Mes- 
siah and the world was created only for the 
Messiah.” Sanh. 98b. 

Modernists seek to cast aspersions on Isaiah 
7:14 by stating that the word translated “ virgin ” 
does not necessarily mean “ virgin.” Edersheim 
says, the fact that the Seventy who were the most 
eminent Hebrew scholars in the world translated 
the word “virgin” is sufficient evidence that in 
this connection the word could have no other mean- 
ing. Probably no “Life” of Christ extant pre- 
sents a higher order of scholarship than Eder- 
sheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. 
Surely Edersheim cannot be accused of prejudice 
in favour of Christianity. He was independent, 
erudite, and naturally biased—if biased at all—on 
the side of Hebraic interpretation. 

Dr. Edward S. Niles, President of the Hebrew 
Messianic Council, says: ‘‘ Married women are 
called, by the original Old Testament Scriptures, 
Ishshah; unmarried women are called Neshim; 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH cc 


mature young women are called Bethulah, and girls 
not mature, under thirteen years of age, are called 
Alma. ‘Translations into English, Greek, Latin and 
Syriac all speak of Mary the Virgin (Alma). 
With regard to the matter of prophecy and the 
Messiah, Edersheim says: ‘‘ The ancient Synagogue 
found references to the Messiah in many more 
passages than those verbal predictions to which we 
generally appeal, and the latter formed (as in the 
New Testament) a proportionately small and sec- 
ondary element in the conception of the Messianic 
era. This is fully borne out by a detailed analysis 
of those passages in the Old Testament to which 
the ancient Synagogue referred as Messianic. 
Their number amounts to 456 (75 from the Penta- 
teuch, 243 from the Prophets and 138 from the 
Hagiographa) and their Messianic application is 
supported by more than 558 references to the most 
ancient Rabbinic writings. But comparatively few 
of these are what would be termed verbal predic- 
tions. Rather it would seem as if every event 
were regarded as prophetic and every prophesy, 
whether by fact or by word (prediction), as a 
light to cast its sheen on the future, until the pic- 
ture of the Messianic age in the far background 
stood out in the hundredfold variegated brightness 
of prophetic events, and prophetic utterances; or, 
as regards the then state of Israel, ’til the dark- 
ness of their present night was lit up by a hundred 
constellations kindling in the sky overhead, and its 


78 THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


lonely silence broken by echoes of heavenly voices, 
and strains of prophetic hymns borne on the 
breeze.” 

To modernism such a picture represents only the 
chimerical dreams of disordered fancy. It sees no 
definite prediction representing Jesus of Nazareth 
as a virgin-Born Redeemer; a royal personage; 
“God manifest in the flesh.”’ 

The fact is, all the ordinances and institutions 
of the Old Testament are types of which Jesus was 
the anti-type. Modernists conceive of the Old 
Testament as the natural literature of a race yet 
in its childhood, and little worthy of recognition 
in our estimates of real religion. There is not 
only nothing inconsonant with the entire Old Testa- 
ment teaching, in accepting the Virgin Birth, but 
it is the actual fulfilment of the clearest declara- 
tions concerning the personality of Jesus and His 
nature and His work. “Son of God and Servant 
of the Lord ” is declared of Him who was to come. 
In the Targum on Isaiah 9:6, the pre-mundane 
existence of the Messiah appears as a common 
belief. 

It is objected that the genealogies in both 
Matthew and Luke refer to Joseph and not to 
Mary. Suppose this to be true, what then? It 
only makes sure that Jesus’ legal and regal stand- 
ing is established. This was the more necessary 
to show from the very fact that He was not the 
son of Joseph by nature. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 79 


Regarding the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, 
Edersheim says: “‘ Whatever view may be taken 
of the genealogies in the Gospels according to St. 
Matthew and St. Luke, whether they be regarded 
as those of Joseph and of Mary, or, which seems 
the more likely, as those of Joseph only making 
his legal descent from David, or vice versa, there 
can be no question that both Joseph and Mary were 
of the royal lineage of David. Most probably the 
two were nearly related, while Mary could also 
claim kinship with the Priesthood, being, no doubt, 
on her mother’s side a blood relative of Elisabeth, 
the priest-wife of Zacharias.” 

The most powerful influence on earth to glorify 
motherhood has been the fact of the Virgin Birth 
of Christ. It is astounding that intelligent men 
will be so strangely blind and so warped in judg- 
ment as to make an attempt to show that the 
Virgin Birth is in any sense a reflection on ordi- 
nary motherhood. Every feature and phase of 
pure womanhood has been beautified and made 
adorable by this great event of history. Instead of 
being hidden forever, the method of the advent of 
Jesus has been made absolutely sure beyond a rea- 
sonable doubt through the testimony of the Holy 
Spirit as recorded in the Gospels. This is in no 
sense a speculative question. It is a fact, “ God- 
wrought and God-attested.”’ Intelligent people 
know perfectly well the impossibility of repudi- 
ating the Virgin birth and at the same time 


80 THE VIRGIN BIRTH 


claiming any sort of credibility, authenticity or 
reliability for the remainder of God’s Word. 
Pre-determining God’s programs and dictating His 
limitations is disastrous business and sooner or 
later brings the would-be prophet into disrepute. 
To the man who disbelieves the Atonement, doubts 
the Resurrection, the question of the Incarnation 
is, of course, unimportant. However, since it is 
basic in the whole Redemptive scheme it is vitally 
important to those who accept Jesus Christ not 
alone as God’s prophet but also as God’s priest 
who offered Himself a living sacrifice on Calvary 
for the sins of the world. 

The noted and sagacious minister of the Word, 
Henry Ward Beecher, could most certainly not be 
accused of being either dogmatic or ultra con- 
servative. His observations have especial point in 
the present controversy. He says: “ We scarcely 
need to say, that we shall take our stand with those 
who accept the New Testament as a collection of 
veritable historical documents, with the record of 
miracles, and with the train of spiritual phenom- 
ena, as of absolute and literal truth. The miracu- 
lous element constitutes the very nerve-system of 
the Gospel. To withdraw it from credence, is to 
leave the Gospel histories a mere shapeless mass of 
pulp.” Life of Jesus Christ, page 9. 

“The Word was God.” “ And the Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us.” This is all the ex- 
planation given by the disciple who was most in 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 81 


sympathy with Jesus. Jesus was God and He was 
made flesh. The simplest rendering of these words 
would seem to be, that the Divine Spirit had en- 
veloped Himself in a human body, and in that con- 
dition been subject to the indispensable limitations 
of material laws.” Life of Jesus Christ, p. 49. 

“The superiority of spiritual over sensuous, is 
the illuminating truth of the New Testament. The 
Gospels should be taken or rejected unmutilated. 
But our sceptical believers take from the New 
Testament its supernatural element,—rub out the 
wheat—and eat the chaff. . . . Miracles are to be 
accepted boldly, or not at all. They are jewels and 
sparkle with divine light, or they are nothing.” 
Life of Jesus Christ, p. 37. 


Vill 
REDEMPTION 


T no point is modernism more completely 
outside the plain teaching of the Scripture 
than in the matter of Redemption. There 

is not the slightest doubt that evolution has worked 
havoc with the faith of many men. Accepted in 
its rationalistic form, it necessarily divests sin of 
its Scriptural significance, since man becomes a 
victim of heredity and environment, and in no such 
sense responsible for his acts as to insure condem- 
nation and penalty. If no sin in the sense of guilt 
before God, then, of course, no Redemption. The 
Bible definitely teaches that man is a free moral 
agent, and that violation of God’s law, or want of 
conformity to it, entails a guilt and alienation from 
God. This estrangement cannot be changed by a 
mere desire that it shall be removed. A Holy God 
demands justice in His Universe, and His very 
nature is so utterly opposed to every form of evil 
that man must be freed from the bondage entailed 
by sin before he can possibly be accepted into fel- 
lowship with a Holy God. 

The coming of Jesus Christ to the world had 
the single object of effecting a complete restora- 


82 


REDEMPTION 83 


tion of amicable relations between man who has 
sinned and God who is holy. The coming of 
Christ was definitely an act of God, and prompted 
wholly through love. The incarnation is a neces- 
sary prerequisite to a Redeemer. In order to ac- 
complish redemption, Christ was God-man. He 
partook of our nature, and at the same time was 
in very truth God. In Himself God and man per- 
fectly met. The Bible employs the word “ re- 
demption”’ as a designation of Christ’s work, and 
the term “ Redeemer” for Christ as the agent 
whereby redemption is secured. Had there been 
no sin, with the result of fixing the incline of life 
downward, there would have been no need of a 
Saviour. Every individual carries in himself suf- 
ficient evidence of sin and guilt to require no reve- 
lation other than his own consciousness that he is 
not at one with his Creator. ‘That the sense of 
guilt is universal, the smoking altars of tribes and 
nations of all lands and all ages testify. 

The Bible doctrine of sin is perfectly clear. 
Through disobedience we became alienated from 
God. Sin entails guilt, and guilt entails judgment. 
“The wages of sin is death.” ‘Through sin the 
sum of the forces of evil in the soul becomes 
greater than the sum of the forces of righteous- 
ness, and the inevitable consequence is death, spir- 
itual death. To change the balance so that the 
life forces shall predominate was God’s problem, 
and He solved it through redemption. “God so 


84 REDEMPTION 


loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life.” ‘ Christ hath redeemed 
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse 
for us.” The promise of redemption was given in 
Gen. 3:15: “ And I will put enmity between thee 
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; 
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
his heel.” 

The idea of substitttion whereby Christ takes 
in some real sense the place of the sinner who 
accepts Him is found in Psalm 51, and Isaiah 
43:24, 25: “Thou hast made me to serve with 
thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine in- 
iquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy 
transgressions for mine own sake, and will not re- 
member thy sins.” The New Testament teaches 
that redemption is a ransom. “ The Son of man is 
come to seek and to save that which was lost,” 
“and to give his life a ransom for many.” “In 
whom we have redemption through his blood, and 
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his 
grace,’ Eph. 1:7. “In whom we have redemption 
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins,” 
Col. 1:14. “Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it 
is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a 
tree,’ Gal. 3:13. ‘To redeem them that were 
under the law, that we might receive the adoption 
of sons,” Gal. 4:5. Christ thus redeems us from 


REDEMPTION 85 


all unrighteousness. The power and dominion of 
sin are gone. We are not alone delivered from 
guilt, but also from the love of sinning, and thus 
become free indeed. All this comes by faith in 
the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin 
of the world.” 

The redemption effected by Christ is a deliver- 
ance from guilt so that the forgiveness of sins is 
made possible and consistent with God’s holiness. 
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, 
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of 
his grace,” Eph. 1:7. “In whom we have re- 
demption through his blood, even the forgiveness 
of sins,’ Col. 1:14. We are thus made new 
creatures and a true possession of Christ by faith. 
“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem 
us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a 
peculiar people, zealous of good works,’ Titus 
2:14. “ Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not 
redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and 
gold, from your vain conversation received by tra- 
dition from your fathers,” I Pet. 1:18. The very 
power of the devil is mastered through this re- 
demptive work of Christ. ‘‘ Now is the judgment 
of this world: now shall the prince of this world 
be cast out,’ John 12:31. “And having spoiled 
principalities and powers, he made a shew of them 
openly, triumphing over them in it,’ Col. 2:15. 
The whole motive for redemption is found in the 
love of God. Christ is redemption offered freely 


86 REDEMPTION 


to all men, on condition that they repent and trust- 
ingly accept Him. Redemption is a release from 
the power of sin. In the face of Scripture, who 
can have the temerity to say we need no redemp- 
tion, and at the same time quote passages from 
God’s Word in support of their own preferred 
claims? 

God’s Word is not ambiguous. There is no 
explaining away its meaning. “Being justified 
freely by his grace through the redemption that 
is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. 3:24. “ And not only 
they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits 
of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within our- 
selves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the re- 
demption of our body,” Rom. 8:23. “ But of him 
are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto 
us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption,’ I Cor. 1:30. “In whom we 
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness 
of sins, according to the riches of his grace,” Eph. 
1:7. “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, 
whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption,” 
Eph. 4:30. “In. whom we have redemption 
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins,” 
Col. 1:14. “ Neither by the blood of goats and 
calves, but by his own blood he entered in once 
into the holy place, having obtained eternal re- 
demption for us,” Heb. 9:12. “ For this cause he 
is the mediator of the new testament that by means 
of death, for the redemption of the transgressions 


REDEMPTION 87 


that were under the first testament, they which 
are called might receive the promise of eternal in- 
heritance,’ Heb. 9: 15. 

Nothing is more definitely declared in God’s 
Word than that every man is lost until he finds 
Jesus Christ. If he has never heard of the historic 
Christ, then, as Joseph Cook was wont to say, he 
is saved by loyalty and faith in the essential Christ 
of conscience. At any rate, LOST is a definite Bible 
word and cannot be softened down to mean any- 
thing other than impoverishment and ruin. “ For 
what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man 
give in exchange for his soul?”, Matt. 16:26. 
“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if 
he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety 
and nine in the wilderness, and go after that 
which is lost, until he find it?” “ And when 
he cometh home, he calleth together his friends 
and neighbours, saying unto them, rejoice with 
me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” 
“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; 
he was lost and is found. And they began to be 
merry.” “It was meet that we should make merry, 
and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is 
alive again; and was lost, and is found,’ Luke 
15:24, 32. “For the Son of man is come to 
seek and to save that which was lost,” Luke 19: 10. 

In direct contrast with this condition of lostness, 
we have the blessed fact of salvation. More than 


88 REDEMPTION 


a score of times Jesus is designated as Saviour. 
His mission to earth was a mission of salvation. 
“For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words 
of God: for God giveth not the spirit by measure 
unto him,” John 3:34. “But Jesus answered 
them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” 
John 5:17. “ Some said, This is he: others said, 
he is like him: but he said, I am he,” John 9:9. 
“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall 
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” Acts 
2:21. “ Neither is there salvation in any other: 
for there is none other name under heaven given 
among men, whereby we must be saved,’ Acts 
4:12. “ And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” 
Acts 16:31. “For if, when we were enemies, we 
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, 
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by 
his life,’ Rom. 5:10. “‘ Even when we were dead 
in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, 
(by grace ye are saved;)” Eph. 2:5. 

All these inspired Scriptures evangelicals thor- 
oughly believe. Modernists repudiate the whole 
doctrine of salvation thus set forth, What man 
needs is education and unfolding, according to the 
modernists. But they find no way to accomplish 
the very thing they proclaim necessary. Nothing 
is SO visionary and unreal as the salvation effected 
by good works. In the very nature of the case 
good works cannot atone for evil already done. 


REDEMPTION 89 


Modernists leave the soul under conviction of sin 
without the assurance of Divine acceptance. E-van- 
gelicals do not undertake to explain just how God 
accomplished redemption through the self-giving 
of the God-man, Jesus Christ. They know two 
things, and know them well, namely, that the Bible 
definitely declares the fact, and also that 1t works. 
It emancipates, renovates, revolutionizes and makes 
man receiving this salvation a “new creature.” It 
works. It gives true peace and adequate power. 
It starts a soul up the sunlit slopes toward the 
gates of pearl. The power of Christ dwells in the 
redeemed soul, and the peace of God which passeth 
all understanding abides there. The Incarnation, 
obedience and death of Christ all contribute to the 
redemption He accomplished, but the chief fact is 
the cross. The supreme thing Jesus came to earth 
for was to die that men might live. God was the 
center and soul of Calvary. Christ on the Cross 
was God doing His utmost for man. It is this very 
fact that has given the Cross such unmeasured sig- 
nificance as a symbol. It represents the last word 
in Divine Love. 

The salvation thus accomplished effects the whole 
man. The intellect is quickened and stimulated so 
that thinking is deeper and straighter. It delivers 
man from that mental darkness which makes him 
blind to the higher truths. The will is endowed 
with a new power of determination which con- 
quers temptation and solicitation to evil. He who 


90 REDEMPTION 


believes in Christ as Saviour already has eternal 
life. Not a single one of the manifestly revealed 
truths is agreeable or acceptable to liberalism. The 
whole thing is repudiated. It is stigmatized as a 
religion of the shambles. 

The supreme sin of humanity is the sin of 
unbelief. “ When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, 
he shall convince the world of sin... because 
they believe not on me.” “He that believeth 
not is condemned already, because he hath not 
believed in the name of the only begotten Son 
of God.” “Be ye reconciled to God.” Could 
anything be more deplorable than the effort of 
modernism to destroy the very faith without which 
no man shall see God? 


IX 
THE, EFEICACY OR PRAYER 


ODERNISM believes in prayer simply as 
a subjective influence. It produces a good 
state of mind. It helps to concentrate the 
thought on spiritual ideals. It aids in realising the 
fact of God. It secures communion, of a more or 
less attenuated kind, with the Eternal. The better 
elements of modernism agree that there may be, 
through prayer, a keener realisation of the Per- 
sonality of God. ‘The very fact of addressing 
Deity serves to establish the fact that there is 
Divine superintendence over the affairs of life. 
The man who prays is less likely to drift into com- 
plete agnosticism or atheism than the man who 
never lifts up his thought to the Creator. 
Materialistic evolution has no place for prayer 
in any true sense of the word. The universe runs 
as a watch runs because it contains within itself 
the forces that make it go, independently of any 
personality whatsoever. But for those who even 
pretend to be really Christian, there is still left, 
even with modernists, a place for prayer. It is 
likely to inculcate a reverence and develop a de- 
voutness which is wholesome. It may lead to an 


91 


92 THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER 


appreciation of the nature of God and bring the 
soul into closer relationship with Him. All this, 
and more, is certainly true as to the subjective in- 
fluence of prayer. When men pray sincerely there 
is developed a fellowship with the Creator and 
Author of our being. In the very act and attitude 
of prayer humility is encouraged in one’s self, and 
a mood is created which permits the Spirit to teach 
and inspire the soul. Man is naturally proud and 
self-sufficient and prayer awakens a sense of real 
dependence. Hence many reject it. | 

But this is not all of prayer. Nothing is more 
clearly taught than that God is a giver of every 
good and perfect gift, through prayer. Prayer is 
confession of sin and of need. In that confession 
the door is open for Divine entrance. Jesus never 
enters bolted doors. He will not and cannot force 
His way against the human will. The key must 
be turned from the inside. He stands at the door 
and knocks, but only enters when a confessing and 
penitent soul swings wide the door. 

Prayer as a procuring cause is foreign to mod- 
ernism. Right here is the radical difference be- 
tween the evangelical and the modernist. Evan- 
gelicals accept unhesitatingly that this is God’s 
World and that He rules over it. Recognising 
the reign of law, the evangelical knows well that 
human intelligence has not yet compassed ail law. 
Behind the scenes God stands ready to change the 
pattern of the weaving tapestry to meet changed 


THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER 93 


conditions. There are many things God can and 
will give in answer to prayer, just because asking 
for them capacitates the soul to receive them. A 
parent can do many things for a child, if the child 
is obedient and in an attitude of appeal, which 
could not possibly be done with safety if the same 
child were independent and self-assertive. 

Jesus taught that God does things in answer to 
prayer. The Bible language is explicit: “ Ask, and 
it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you.” “If ye then, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more shall your Father which 
is in heaven give good things to them that ask 
him? ” 

Material blessings are given in answer to prayer. 
The sick are healed. The weak are given strength 
for the battle. The joyless are given a new atti- 
tude toward life and enter upon the songful way. 
Business interests are utterly changed by prayer. 
Prayer adds to the success of the merchant, the 
lawyer, the physician, the mechanic, the clerk 
and people of every occupation and profession. 
“Prayer moves the arm that moves the universe.” 
Let no man rob you of the benefits, the advan- 
tages, the riches, that prayer secures. Things are 
wrought through prayer that would not and could 
not be achieved without it. Nor is it a merely 
subjective matter. It is objective as well. It is not 
that God has to be teased for things He knows we 


94 THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER 


need. It is that while He knows our needs, He 
cannot wisely meet them unless we ask Him. 

“No good thing will he withhold from them 
that walk uprightly.” Yes, but a large part of 
walking uprightly is manifest in appeal for the 
wisdom, the strength and the desire to walk up- 
rightly. There is not one thing of interest to an 
immortal soul that is foreign to the Divine thought 
and will. Nothing is too trivial to take to God, if 
it bears upon our well-doing and our well-being. 
Many who have come under the influence of me- 
chanical and material evolution have reached the 
conclusion that as the wheels of a watch move with 
an inexorableness due to its mechanism, so every- 
thing in the world moves arbitrarily, and there is 
no eye to pity and no ear attentive to our call. 
Nothing could be farther from the fact. God 
hears. God cares. God answers. God gives. 
True prayer always breathes “ Thy will be done.” 
It is not demand. It is trustful appeal and loving 
petition. 


Xx 
CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE 


T best life is a struggle. We make every 
advance in the teeth of storm. Inclination 
calls for indulgence. Passion is always ap- 

pealing for satisfaction. ‘The flesh warreth 
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” 
“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil 
which I would not, that I do.” ‘The lawlessness 
of today is only the outbreak of an inner rebellion 
that is ever ready to assert itself when restraints 
are demanded. Appreciating the value of char- 
acter, the determination to put down the unholy 
usurpations of the flesh costs. It is not easy. It 
means something to practice self-denial. Altru- 
ism is not a fleshly inclination. In the business 
world competitions are fierce. Short cuts to suc- 
cess are ever a temptation. The evidence of this 
is seen in the series of investigations demanded by 
Congress, because men supposed to be far beyond 
yielding to unrighteous temptations, have done so. 
Righteousness never has an easy time of it. It 
has to fight its way out and on and up. All this 
is to emphasise the fact that a righteous life must 
rest On an assurance positive and final. We want 


95 


96 CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE 


to know that after the toil there will be rest. We 
want to know that God is and is the rewarder of 
them that diligently seek Him. We want to be 
sure that we have not run in vain. We have a 
right to be assured that it is worth the effort and 
the self-sacrifice and the pain to “fight the good 
fight of faith.” 

Again, we see the great procession moving out 
of sight into the shadows. The friends of youth 
are one by one passing out. At mid-life half of 
them have gone. At three score years we begin to 
be lonely. At three score and ten how few remain! 
At four score the sun sets and the day is done. 
What then? We have toiled labouriously and we 
have fought evil in all of its forms. We have met 
disappointment. We have been under the fire of 
unjust criticism, and perhaps have suffered from 
the malignity of the evil minded or the misin- 
formed. Well, what then? Has the struggle been 
for nought? We might have drifted along the 
easiest way. Has all the effort paid? Must we 
pass into the night with no assurance of dawn? 
It is not enough to accept the guesses, or even the 
probabilities, the perhaps and the maybe. It will 
not do to say it is probable that a Good God will 
some way see us safely through. We want to know 
that there is a Good God. We want to know that 
our relations with Him are forever settled. We 
want to know that we have entered into a fellow- 
ship that nothing can destroy, and that will con- 


CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE 97 


tinue through all eternity. We must have assur- 
ance or we have no peace. 

Science, with all its marvels of wisdom and 
knowledge, stops abruptly at the bedside of the 
dying. It offers no companionship for one single 
second beyond the last breath. It has spoken well 
and eloquently regarding mental and bodily facts 
and forces. It has compelled nature to yield her 
remedial secrets. It has taught faithfully of 
processes. But here at the moment of all moments 
serious and supreme, science has not a word to say. 
She is dumb. The soul is left to pass out, if there 
be a soul that survives death, without one single 
assurance from science that a morning dawn will 
follow the night. No philosophy speaks with a 
single word that is positive, unequivocal, final, re- 
specting that “undiscovered country from whose 
bourne no traveller returns.” 

What is the best word modernism can speak in 
that hour of unspeakable solemnity? It brings no 
unquestionable message from an inspired Revela- 
tion, because it knows no such revelation. Whether 
God has actually spoken must be determined by 
each individual. The evidence is not final that 
any single verse in the Bible is the unmistakable 
Word of God. No one has ever come back to 
relate the experiences beyond the vale. Since Jesus 
was but a man, though exalted, He knew no more 
about the life beyond than other men. Modern- 
ism knows no authority save that of experience. 


98 CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE 


But here experience teaches us nothing, since 
we may not call upon the experience of the de- 
parted for evidence and testimony. Where, then, 
is assurance? 

Evangelicals are not left suspended in the cloud 
of uncertainty. We have a sure word of Revela- 
tion. God has spoken. He has spoken regarding 
life here and hereafter. Jesus had much to say 
about the life to come. On His word of honour 
as God, He declared Eternal Life was within His 
power to give. Faith resulting from repentance 
and remission of sin identifies the disciple with his 
Lord. ‘“ He that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die.” “ Let not your 
heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also 
in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: 
... I go to prepare a place for you. And if I 
go... I will come again, and receive you unto 
myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” 
“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast 
given me, be with me where I am; that they may 
behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for 
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the 
world.” 

The Apostle Paul over and over again presents 
the future life of blessedness as the surest of all 
sure things. “If we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with him.” “We know that if our 


CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE 99 


earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we 
have a building of God, an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens.” More than two 
hundred of the most positive declarations of the 
life everlasting are to be found in the Gospels and 
Epistles. When the Bible is known to be the very 
Word of God, then doubts disappear. Faith blos- 
soms into the completest soul knowledge. Here is 
the peace that passeth all understanding. It is one 
thing stoically to close the eyes and meet the in- 
evitable, steeling one’s self against a display of 
weakness. The pagan and the atheist can do that. 
It is quite another matter to see Heaven advancing 
as earth is receding, and eagerly reach out for the 
new day. It is one thing to entertain a hope that 
all will be well, and trust, though without knowl- 
edge, that “ Morn shall tearless be.” But it is all 
so different when one has experienced the joys of 
regeneration, born anew, in Jesus Christ and 
knows in his heart of hearts that as Christ rose 
from the dead, so resurrection to eternal life is 
guaranteed to all who trust Him and have become 
identified with Him. 

It is in the fact of Incarnation which became 
the foundation for the Cross; the fact of the Cross 
which opened the way for the Resurrection; the 
fact of the Resurrection which opened the way for 
the Ascension; the fact of the Ascension which 
returned Jesus Christ to the Throne: it is in these 
facts, I say, that we have our assurance. ‘The 


100 CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE 


‘“‘T know ” repeatedly expressed in the first, second 
and third Epistles of St. John all rest back on the 
everlasting certitudes above mentioned. When you 
drift into the camp of modernism, you have left 
the eternal foundations. You have changed pe- 
riods to interrogation points, and they are so many 
that they obscure the heavens, as I have seen the 
swarms of locusts obscure the sun, in their flight 
through the sky. 

The struggle up is worth while. All the way 
through, the believer in the Christ of the Manger, 
Cross and Throne, carries with him the conscious- 
ness of Divine approval and of Divine help. 
Nothing but real progress can ever give soul peace. 
We are entreated to “ grow in grace, and in the 
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 
“Go on unto perfection.” What an implication of 
approach to God! ‘“ More and more unto the per- 
fect day.” “I shall be satisfied when I awake with 
thy likeness.” “ He which hath begun a good 
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus 
Christ.” “Unto him that is able to keep you from 
falling, and to present you faultless before the pres- 
ence of His glory with exceeding joy.” What zest 
it gives to life to know! How it stabilises the soul 
amid storms of doubt and denial to know! The 
one sure ground of knowledge is the Blessed Word 
of God, which finds corroboration and certification 
in experience, for those who have a true vision of 
the supernatural, saving Christ. 


XI 
THE MINISTRY AND MODERNISM 


HY is it so difficult today to secure recruits 
for the Christian ministry? Every kind 
of reason but the right one has been as- 

signed. The old-time call to the ministry was no 
myth. It had in it no sinister motive. It was a 
holy, soul compulsion, such as actuated Paul, who 
said, “ Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.” It 
was just such an appeal, only upon the spiritual 
plane, as is made when a victim is sinking beneath 
the wave and is calling for help. Who would 
plunge into the icy waters of a river, endangering 
life and health, merely to make the effort a little 
lighter for one who would reach shore without 
assistance? ‘There would be no sufficient appeal 
in such a condition. We are told that men refuse 
to enter the ministry because salaries are inade- 
quate to comfort. ‘There is not a word of truth 
in it, though it is a fact that the salary of the 
average minister has been shamefully small. We 
are also told that appeals in business and profes- 
sional lines absorb the attention and control the 
action of youth to the detriment of the ministry. 
None of these things would have any weight as 


101 


102 THE MINISTRY AND MODERNISM 


against the redemptive compulsion and passion 
which led Jesus to His Cross. When you dilute 
and soften down the meaning of sin, and declare 
that humanity is safe without the sacrificial Atone- 
ment of Christ, you have taken away the supreme 
incentive to the Christian ministry. 

Preaching the ‘‘ modern” Jesus makes the whole 
matter of religion not one of life and death, but 
merely of culture and improvement, with no ade- 
quate motive for either. Why is it that many of 
the theological seminaries are able to call but a 
handful of men for instruction, while institutions 
holding loyalty to Christ and the Word, success- 
fully appeal to hundreds of American youth to 
receive the intellectual discipline necessary for 
efficiency in proclaiming “ The Story of Jesus’? 
It is because these institutions have not lost the 
vision of the Christ of Calvary. This is the only 
explanation. Confidence in the overthrow of evil, 
in the victory of right and in the establishment of 
righteousness lies in implicit trust and faith, not 
in a dead Jesus, but in a living, imperial, victorious 
Christ. The pale-faced, soft-spoken, unauthori- 
tative, impotent Jesus of modernism, is in no 
respect related to the splendour-robed, glory- 
crowned, wave-walking, storm-defying, miracle- 
working, life-giving, peace-empowering Christ. 
The most powerful factor in the world today is 
the Christ who said, “TI, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me.” Legislation, 


THE MINISTRY AND MODERNISM 1038 


the so-called “ Social Gospel” and humanitarian 
societies have a certain influence, but merely as 
palliatives. The hurt of the world knows only one 
healing balm, and that is poured into the gaping 
wounds made by sin from the pierced hand of the 
world’s Saviour. We are told that the Sermon on 
the Mount is the Magna Charta of true religion, 
but note this: that modernism has no evidence that 
Jesus ever spoke the Sermon on the Mount, which 
is any stronger than the evidence for His super- 
natural birth, His atoning death and His resurrec- 
tion. ‘They have no manuscripts or documents 
which give any evidence that Jesus ever lived, 
except the very documents which with equal posi- 
tiveness and clarity declare for the whole super- 
natural program narrated in the Gospels. 

The Christ of the Cross, and He alone, is the 
sinner’s Saviour, by virtue of His Divine sacrifice. 
He is the living consoler of the sad, the strength of 
sufferers, the companion of the lonely, the one su- 
preme inspirer to great leadership, the infallible 
counselor, the abiding peace-giver, the full assur- 
ance of everlasting life to the dying, and to all who 
trust in Him. 

To be sure, the preachers of modernism are 
lavish in their applause of Jesus. They are un- 
stinted in ecomiums and laudations. The unwary 
are deceived by such utterances. Jesus Christ asks 
no applause, no laudation; He will have no patron- 
age, no eulogy. He asks worship, adoration and 


, 


104 THE MINISTRY AND MODERNISM 


trust. A Gospel which represents the Jesus whose 
love is anemic, mere sentiment, is the Gospel which 
led Germany into her contempt for Christianity and 
her repudiation of it as a religion for ineffectives. 
The love of Christ is infinitely above mere kindli- 
ness and benignity. It is an eternal principle, com- 
passionate but commanding, and rests upon great 
basic facts. The higher spiritual intelligence re- 


coils from the findings of a distinctively material- 


istic science or an impotent liberalism. Every 
great discovery in the natural world is hailed with 
delight and satisfaction by believers in the Eternal 
Christ. On the other hand, we appreciate perfectly 
well that in the domain of the spiritual no one can 
speak authoritatively but Almighty God. The only 
truth which can permanently grip the human con- 
science or the spiritual intelligence, is truth which 
found its complete and perfect enunciation and final 
demonstration in the Christ whose leadership has 
guided on and on, until five hundred millions of 
people worship at His footstool and proclaim Him 
Lord of all. 

The human will is free to make its own choices. 
It is contrary to the policy and principle of Gov- 
ernment to curtail the rights of a man to believe 
what he will and to make proclamation of that 
belief so long as it does not interfere with consti- 
tuted authority. When out in the open, making 
clear and unconcealed declaration against belief in 
the only Christ proclaimed in the Gospels, modern- 


THE MINISTRY AND MODERNISM = 105 


ism is well within its rights. When it uses words 
and phrases just as though evangelical, it is to be 
unsparingly condemned. But realising its error 
and mistaken claims, it is the duty of every true 
believer in our Lord Jesus Christ to present the 
truth which hitherto has been, and forever must 
be, the saving and building truth for humanity. 
There are no compulsions but the compulsions of 
conscience and cultivated intelligence, and when™ 
unhindered, these will lead straight to the Christ 
of the Manger, Cross and Throne. 


XII 
SCHOLARSHIP 


HE claim that all scholarship is on the side 
of modernism is nothing but brazen inso- 
lence and pompous assertion. With a super- 

ciliousness sufficient to discredit it, modernism 
claims the earth in the matter of intellectualism and 
has given no slightest evidence that its claims are 
true. We hear over and over again, ad nauseam, 
that “all scholars’”’ have repudiated the Deity of 
Christ, the Inspiration of the Word of God, Mir- 
acles, Redemption and all the rest that is held dear 
by those whose transactions with God make sure 
the everlasting foundations. 

Now, all this is weak, shallow, bubble-blowing. 
Who have been the promoters of learning? 
Who founded Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Am- 
herst, Dartmouth, Williams, Brown, Oberlin, 
Carleton, Wheaton and a score more educational 
institutions in America? 

Were they men repudiating the great doctrines 
of the Bible? Were they men who had no confi- 
dence in the Bible as God’s Word? He who runs 
may read. It is indubitably the fact that from the 
standpoint of mere intellectuality all shades of 


106 


SCHOLARSHIP 107 


belief and unbelief can present illustrious names. 
Deism was advocated by men of large learning. 
Pantheism, agnosticism, rationalism, materialism, 
and even rank infidelity, can all illustrate their in- 
tellectual claims to recognition, by introducing us 
to men of intellectual renown. It is utterly absurd 
for modernism to boast of a superior scholarship, 
when as a matter of fact the very greatest pro- 
moters and exemplars of advanced education, and 
the most eminent men of science and philosophy 
by the scores and hundreds have been, and today 
are, avowedly evangelical in faith and accept with- 
out equivocation or apology the Bible as God’s 
Word and Christ as an Atoning Saviour. It is 
sheer presumption and arrogant conceit for mod- 
ernism to go up and down the earth megaphoning 
a monopoly of learning, while it impudently and 
insolently ignores a multitude of the most eminent 
men in the world of thought today. 

But one thing further is in point respecting the 
matter of scholarship. There are some things it 
can accomplish and some things it cannot accom- 
plish. The very highest attainments in intellectual 
discipline and mental acumen must be humble in 
the presence of Jesus Christ or become hopelessly 
confused. Christianity is not a man-made reli- 
gion. It rests on facts. These facts are discernible 
without University training. 

In a Court of Justice a witness of average in- 
telligence is just as capable of testifying that on a 


108 SCHOLARSHIP 


certain day the sun shone, as the wisest astronomer. 
A farmer does not need to be a chemist to testify 
that seed cast into the ground, watered and sun- 
blessed, will germinate and produce after its kind. 
Few people can give a correct analysis of the 
processes whereby bread becomes bone and brain, 
but it requires no physiological training in the 
schools to know that food vitalises. 

A man need not be a botanist to appreciate the 
fact that a rose is beautiful and filled with fra- 
grance. It is desirable that the very largest acqui- 
sitions in the realm of learning be realised, but the 
supreme facts of life are so attested that the av- 
erage intelligence is capable of appreciation and 
appropriation. Modernism seeks to make people 
feel that some new and wonderful light has re- 
cently been vouchsafed the group classed as mod- 
ernist. Christianity rests upon a series of facts 
which can be studied with success by the man in 
the street, as effectively as by the man in the seat 
of learning. During three years of the study of 
philosophy in the University of the City of New 
York, I was profoundly impressed with the endless 
variety of theories, put forth by men of eminence, 
during the nineteen hundred years of Christianity, 
in an effort to account for human progress without 
giving credit to Christianity. 

Theories, speculations, guesses, yes, but no truth 
to which sin-laden, sorrow-stricken, overburdened 
humanity could go with the slightest hope of relief. 


SCHOLARSHIP 109 


When it comes to matters of the soul, no man, 
however learned, can present a humanly constructed 
system that satisfies the need. In the realm of 
Spirit, none but God can speak. Who would sit 
and allow any man on his own say so to declare 
“Thou shalt,” “ Thou shalt not’? Where is the 
ground of obligation? Who has a right to impose 
his will wpon my conscience? Certainly no man 
who has no other claim to authority than his own 
conclusions, unaided by the light of Revelation. 

All the learning of the world for nineteen hun- 
dred years has been unable to produce any ade- 
quate reason for the rejection of the “ Glorious 
Gospel of the Blessed God.” Not supercilious 
pomposity, but humble teachableness, is the proper 
attitude. Among the men of learning with whom 
I have become acquainted, I know of none whose 
logic was more irresistible, or whose clear analytic | 
thinking was more admirable than that of Dr. W. 
G. T. Shedd, and he was accustomed to say: 
“Gentlemen, acquire all the learning possible and 
let your minds be disciplined to the most accurate 
thinking; but remember when it comes to matters 
of the soul, only God can make full revelation, and 
you must enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a little 
child.” All this is obnoxious to modernism. 
Modernism is not inclined to kneel. It wants to 
enter the Kingdom, but not with bowed head. It 
wishes to substitute “Thus saith science” for 
“Thus saith the Lord.” It brings no results in 


110 SCHOLARSHIP 


repentance and remission of sin. It leaves man 
haughty, self-satisfied, self-sufficient, unforgiven. 
It knows too much that is not true. 

Evangelicals hail with delight each new achieve- 
ment of science. We admire the ventures and 
adventures of daring men in the fields of learning. 
We appreciate fully the value of scholarship in a 
thousand fields of inquiry, but when the issue is 
spiritual life and death, we well know that science 
is absolutely speechless. If God has not broken 
the silence and shown the way to life, then we are 
helpless and hopeless. But we know He has. The 
natural sciences have made such strides in almost 
every department that many have become intoxi- 
cated with modern achievement and assume that no 
Divine revelation is necessary. Man, we are told, 
carries within himself a sufficiency for his own 
self-realisation, which is equivalent to salvation. 
But assertion is not argument, nor does vociferous 
declaration long accredit a statement to the confi- 
dence of the commonsense of mankind. There is 
a line beyond which science cannot speak with 
authority. All types of ethical theory fail to sat- 
isfy, except those that recognise God as a personal 
Being, with full authority to command, whose 
authority is permeated with both wisdom and love. 
Science knows nothing of eternal life. Science 
knows nothing of the supernatural. 

Here we walk alone with God. Hence the un- 
speakable importance of that vision of truth which 


SCHOLARSHIP 111 


comes from seeing the invisible and that appreci- 
ation of truth which comes through Divine inspi- 
ration and healing whereby we hear the inaudible. 

The humblest child of humanity may find and 
love God without the aid of “all scholars.” The 
wisest need to acquire a higher learning in the 
School of Christ. As a matter of fact, no mind 
reaches its best until it fellowships with the Infi- 
nite Teacher. The master minds in science, art and 
philosophy have been vitamised by a real impinge- 
ment of the mind of God through Jesus Christ, 
God’s Only Begotten Son. 

Evangelicals present no humanly devised schemes 
of ethical and spiritual truth. We have “ the more 
sure word of prophecy.” We offer not theory or 
cunningly devised sophistries, but ‘ Thus saith the 
Lord.” We know whom we have believed. Mod- 
ernism has no “ sure word of prophecy.” It knows 
nothing about “ Holy men of old moved by the 
Holy Ghost.” It cannot say with Christ, “ Search 
the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal 
life: and they are they which testify of me.” 

Yielding not an iota to modernism in appreci- 
ation of the most advanced human learning, pro- 
vided it is in very truth learning, the evangelical 
turns to a higher and holier scholarship for its 
inspirations and messages to a wounded world. 

There are many men intellectually well equipped 
who are living on the lower levels spiritually. Is 
inability to understand how God could create a 


112 SCHOLARSHIP 


universe governed by law and yet leave room for 
Himself to act above the level of ordinary modes, 
a mark of superior learning? It is rather a mark 
of shriveled faith and arrested spuritual develop- 
ment. ‘To reject Revelation and sneer at miracles 
requires no prodigious mental effort. 

The veriest tyro can deal in negations and utter 
denials. Unbelief is thought to be a mark of pro- 
found learning and deep thinking. How absurd! 

No group of men are better entitled to respect 
on the mere ground of power of mentality than the 
Rationalists of Germany. But where were they 
leading the world religiously? Into chaos and 
worse. 

They did not know even the rudiments of Chris- 
tianity. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. 
What did Jesus mean when He said, “I thank 
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 
thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru- 
dent, and hast revealed them unto babes”? Surely 
not to reflect on learning, but to declare that the 
things of the Spirit are not dependent on worldly 
wisdom. 

The Apostolic College was not composed of the 
modernists of that day. Not the Greek philoso- 
pher, or the professional religionist from the school 
of Gamaliel. It was composed of men unlettered, 
and yet competent to understand the mysteries 
sufficiently to become the vehicles through whom 
Christ could give His message of salvation to the 


SCHOLARSHIP 113 


world. ‘“ Where is boasting, then? It is ex- 
cluded.” No man can make too great an effort 
to develop to the utmost the talent God has given 
him, but after he has availed himself of all the 
schools can give, he is yet in the kindergarten, 
spiritually, until illuminated and empowered by the 
Holy Spirit. ‘“‘ When he, the Spirit of truth, is 
come, he will guide you into all truth.” 


DOUG 
RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 


NE of the most practical tests of religious 
ideal and programme and of religious doc- 
trine is ability to awaken and arouse the 

neglectful and indifferent and turn the thought to 
spiritual responsibility. ‘The whole history of re- 
ligious progress is one of advance and decline. 
Christianity has made rapid strides forward and 
then periods of indifference have followed and 
sometimes an utter degeneracy in spiritual mat- 
ters. Fluctuations have been so obvious that one 
naturally seeks to discover the reasons. Sinful 
propensities assert themselves, and protest against 
commands and restraints becomes accentuated. 
Then conscience becomes dulled and self-indulgence 
runs riot. After about so long there is a reaction 
against the reign of passion. Religion is invoked 
to correct the evils which have become intolerable, 
and what is known as a “revival” brings thou- 
sands to the standard of the Cross. Jesus Christ 
becomes the center of thought and the whole moral 
nature undergoes complete transformation. Since 
Pentecost, these especial manifestations of the Holy 
Spirit have periodically taken place. 


114 


RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 115 


Growth in grace is not an accident. Untiring 
vigilance, constant prayerfulness and fight against 
evil must be vigourous and unrelenting. But re- 
laxation is very likely to be experienced. ‘Then 
occurs decline. Lukewarmness, coldness and then 
death logically follow the arrest of spiritual fer- 
vour. Various influences combine to bring about 
a decline in faith and fervour in the entire 
world. This has repeatedly happened. In the 
early Church genuine revivals attended and fol- 
lowed persecution. The ranks were recruited by 
widespread proclamation of Jesus Christ as the 
Saviour of men. The Pauline revival spread 
through Asia Minor and Greece. It was preach- 
ing of Christ and the doctrines Apostolic that 
produced the remarkable ingathering. Powerful 
effusions of the Holy Spirit brought thousands to 
repentance. Tertullian, at the beginning of the 
third century, said: “ We have filled all places in 
your dominions, cities, islands, corporations, coun- 
cils, armies, tribes, the senate, the palace and the 
court of judicature.” 

The Protestant Revival begun by Huss and 
Wycliff, and later increased by Luther, Calvin and 
their associates, became a world movement on a 
colossal scale. It was a call to the Word of God 
and to Jesus Christ. Tens of thousands were born 
of the Spirit and turned from death to life. It 
was far and away the greatest revival of religion 
in the world’s history. The call to repentance and 


116 RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 


to the acceptance of Christ occasioned it. Among 
the great leaders there was not one who did not 
believe in the inspiration of the Bible, the Atone- 
ment of Christ on Calvary, His Resurrection and 
every cardinal doctrine that is stressed today by 
evangelicals. The whole movement was inaugu- 
rated by men who had experienced the new birth. 
It was a gospel of regeneration that was preached, 
and not moral repair, which never has and never 
can transform a life and give to it Godlikeness. 
For a period of four hundred years there have 
been times of refreshing through the Spirit of 
God, and without a single exception they have been 
inaugurated by fervent, consecrated evangelicals. 
Under the preaching of John Knox, then of Wish- 
att, Cooper and Welsh, Scotland was pervaded with 
a religious awakening that completely transformed 
the life of the whole people. We read of the Gen- 
eral Assembly, numbering more than four hundred 
ministers and elders “ renewing their covenant with 
sighs and groans and tears as they were swayed by 
the Holy Spirit as the leaves of the trees are swayed 
by the wind and by the rushing mighty wind of a 
driving tempest.” This was at the close of the 
sixteenth century. The preaching of Bruce and 
Livingstone, in Scotland, in 1630, resulted in thou- 
sands turning to God, five hundred being converted 
in a single day. Livingstone wrote: “I have seen 
more than a thousand at once lifting up their hands 
and the tears falling down from their eyes as they 


RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 117 


solemnly surrendered themselves to the Lord Jesus 
Christ’ 

After Cromwell and the Commonwealth there 
set in a period of profligacy and degeneracy of an 
appalling nature. It continued until devout men 
and women feared lest God Almighty would de- 
stroy the world. There was no sin that was not 
practiced with brazenness. Unbelief was assertive. 
Infidelity made boasts of the complete debacle of 
Christianity. Unbelief was everywhere, even in 
the Church. Religion was formal and a matter of 
convenience. Every fundamental of Christianity 
was denied. The modernists of the period sneered 
at miracles and denounced the doctrine of an In- 
spired Bible as a ridiculous fiction of the weak 
minded. With an effrontery and presumption ex- 
actly like that of today the claim was made that 
no educated or intelligent person could longer 
accept as true the deity of Christ or the Atonement 
or the Resurrection. Every educational institution 
had its infidel group and the caricature of Chris- 
tianity was the chief entertainment. It looked as 
though the knell of doom had sounded for the 
Church. 

Yet there were thousands who were loyal to 
Christ, and who knew that God Almighty could 
not and would not see the ruin of His Church. 
Groups gathered in prayer for revival. The 
“rushing mighty wind”’ of Pentecost came again. 
A new and wonderful effusion of the Holy Ghost 


118 RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 


was felt throughout England. The leaders were 
the Wesleys and Whitefield and other devout men 
of kindred belief. The revival swept over all En- 
gland and Scotland and Ireland and through the 
British Colonies. America felt its power, es- 
pecially New England. So tremendous was it that 
it became known as the era of “ Great Awaken- 
ing.’ Later followed wars: the French war, the 
War of the Revolution, and a great political and 
social upheaval. Religious life once more sunk to 
a low ebb. The most outrageous profanity and 
‘blatant infidelity defied every law of God and de- 
nounced the doctrines and creeds of the Church 
as outworn fables. But once again men of faith 
with a passion for the lost prayed God for new 
power and a return to the fountain of salvation. 
A series of revivals began which brought people 
by tens of thousands to God through Christ. From 
1796 to 1809 revivals were constant in various 
sections of the United States. In sections where 
apostasy and unbelief were most pronounced re- 
vivals were few until the great era of modern 
revivals. Men like Nettleton and Finney insti- 
tuted what came to be known as protracted meet- 
ings and the most marvelous results attended the 
preaching of Salvation through Faith in Jesus 
Christ. 

From 1827 to 1833 the whole nation was shaken 
by the revival wave. In 1858 another mighty 
movement set in and nearly half a million were 


RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 119 


converted in a single year. The Moody Revivals 
are too recent to require especial mention. From 
the Atlantic to the Pacific the revival spirit called 
people to renewed consecration and brought scores 
of thousands to acknowledge Jesus Christ as a 
personal Saviour. Now these are facts. Did a 
single one of these revival movements from Pente- 
cost to the present have its origin in the heart of 
a man who rejected the Virgin Birth of Christ, 
or the fact of a Redeeming Sacrifice, or the Resur- 
rection and Ascension? Not one! Men imbued 
with the spirit of the modernism of today cannot 
point to one single work of Grace started by 
them. Modernism sneers at revivals of religion. 
It is incapable of appreciating such a work of 
the Holy Spirit. It invokes psychology and 
mesmeric influence to account for the phenomenon 
known as revival conversion. The churches where 
modernism is preached are without fervour and 
have no converting message. It is useless to 
deny it. 

Liberalism has had not one thing that even ap- 
proximates a revival in arousing spiritual zeal. 
It is indeed the reactions from its dreary desola- 
tions and powerless ethical appeals that produce 
revivals. Right now a great revival is due from 
the very lengths to which apostasy has gone. In 
the vain hope of saving a church from wreck, not 
a few men who have ceased to believe and teach 
the evangelical truths, call in some one who feels 


120 RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 


the redemptive passion stirring in his soul, and sit 
by while he does his utmost to arrest the spiritual 
degeneracy which invariably sets in under the bar- 
ren platitudes of modernistic preaching. “ We 
unhesitatingly confess,” said a prominent Boston 
liberalist to me recently, “that our church is not 
calculated to minister to the masses. We are 
called to teach the select few who live on the 
higher ethical levels.” Yes, and teach them— 
what? The utterly false and un-Biblical doctrine 
of self-salvation. 

It requires only a fair intelligence and an open 
mind to see that a form of faith which has never 
yet produced a spiritual awakening is not at all 
Christianity, whatever else it may be. It is easy 
to pose and proclaim, but if no results are seen, 
assumed superiority counts for absolutely nothing 
with sensible people. 

A revival of pure and undefiled religion requires 
a hearty acceptance of Jesus Christ as Saviour 
and Lord. Regeneration is a work of the Holy 
Ghost and the Holy Ghost never, never, never 
works apart from Jesus Christ. Hold that truth. 
Do not expect that the Holy Spirit will come to 
your aid while you deny the Lord of Glory in His 
supernatural birth, His supernatural life, His su- 
pernatural atonement on Calvary, His supernatural 
resurrection, His supernatural enthronement in 
glory. Power is gone when you leave out the 
Cross. Hark back, you Ministers of Religion, to 


RELIGIOUS AWAKENING 121 


the source of wisdom and power, the Inspired 
Book, the Redeeming Christ, for then, and only 
then, will your ministry be with power to save 
the lost. 


XIV 
THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 


HE, best test of a proposition or a pro- 

gramme is the result of its application. 

Russia is a world demonstration of the 
utter failure of applied Communism to do any- 
thing but wreck. It had long been claimed that 
all the world needed to convince it of the paradise 
to be enjoyed through Communism was a demon- 
stration on a large scale with facilities to make 
it effective. ‘The opportunity came. The “ No 
king,” “No God” slogan worked its inevitable 
results. This world has never witnessed a more 
awful catastrophe. The leaders bathed in blood 
to the armpits. Poverty constantly increasing; 
every manner of infamy practiced through the 
arbitrary decisions of the most colossal murderers 
in history ; ruthlessness never was more red handed 
and never more cruel and pitiless. Russia has 
been made a desolation more desolate than the 
Sahara. 

Thus it is necessary to have an actual applica- 
tion of a theory before you can be sure that it 
will work; and if it works, what its work will be. 
Great claims have been made for modernism. ‘The 


122 


THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 123 


distinctive social gospel, completely separated from 
the doctrine of regeneration, has been declared to 
be the solution of most of our political, social and 
religious ills. There is a true social gospel, but it 
is the Gospel of transformed lives, and an applica- 
tion of redemptive truth through the individual, 
with results contributed to the mass. E'vangelicals 
are tremendously interested in every feature and 
form of human progress, but we well know that 
the units of the mass have to be changed before 
you can change the mass. There is no reform 
that has not had the earnest and intense advocacy 
of evangelicals. They are foremost in insistence 
on such movements as the Prohibition Amend- 
ment and Law Enforcement. In the “ World and 
Religion’? Movement there was a revelation of 
the apathy of the “Friendly Citizen,” the man 
outside the lines of religious activity. There 
are notable and splendid exceptions to the rule. 
Now, turning to the effect of modernism ap- 
plied to church life, what do we find? With hardly 
an exception, it means waning interest, decreased 
attendance, the abandonment of the evening ser- 
vice, the substitution of some sort of a lecture or 
entertainment for the mid-week meeting. It re- 
sults in a steadily diminishing ardour in the spir- 
itual side of life, with a hundred different things 
to keep the fading faith from complete extinction. 
Five specific instances have been brought to my 
attention by officials of churches in Maine and 


124 THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 


New Hampshire. In each instance the story was 
the same. It runs as follows: “ People in the 
community had been interested in the maintenance 
of worship in our village church. Many of our 
young people haye gone to the city. We had 
recommended to us a man from the Seminary. 
He talked very eagerly of his admiration for Jesus 
and of the remarkable ethical value of the Bible. 
We soon found that he did not believe in a Super- 
natural Christ, or in the Bible as Inspired. Interest 
in the church steadily decreased. We have had 
moving pictures, and we have had the minister 
leading the dance, but the church has been dying 
and we are in despair. Can you recommend a man 
who really believes something, and knows what he 
believes? We do not care how old or how young, 
or what College he graduated from. We have a 
heart hunger entirely unmet, and we know the 
blight that has come on religion in this community 
is due to departure from the Christ of the Gos- 
pels. What can you do for us?” 

In four of these churches I was able to recom- 
mend men who had passed through that blessed 
experience of being born from above. Each had 
a passion like the redemptive passion of Jesus 
Christ. Each of those churches at once began an 
upward movement. The entire community was 
changed. 

A few years ago, three deacons of a church in 
Greater Boston came to my study and asked if 


THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 125 


something could not be done either to get their 
pastor to see the folly of preaching against the 
authority of the Word of God, or to help him to 
get connected elsewhere, that they might have once 
more the Living Christ proclaimed. In tears one 
of them said that as a result of the modernistic 
negations, the young people almost all entirely 
neglected the church and attended only on the 
occasion of some social event. JI answered, that 
right here the laymen of the churches had so far 
neglected their obligations that they were respon- 
sible for results. I stated what I believe, that the 
immediate future of the church rests with the 
laymen, who should see to it that a Minister called 
to the church gives the most assuring evidence of 
a positive and constructive belief in the great doc- 
trine of the Bible and the Church. Ordaining 
Councils are often composed of men who have no 
valid vision of a Saving Christ, and simply do not 
believe that Christ’s death on Calvary was a true 
atonement for sin. I stated to these brethren that 
until laymen who are serving on committees in 
search of a pastor and teacher, make their own 
investigation, and refuse to leave the matter to 
Ordaining Councils, there will continue to be dis- 
appointment and just such experiences as they 
were passing through. I advised them to talk 
frankly with their pastor and state clearly their 
views. ‘They said it was hopeless, unless outside 
pressure could be brought to bear, because many 


126 THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 


who had never given the slightest evidence of con- 
version had been admitted to membership, and that 
the requirements for membership were no more 
than they would be to unite with any secular organ- 
isation in the contmunity. 

I have seen, in the West, a field of a hundred 
acres of Osaka wheat, all headed out and the pros- 
pects of a great harvest excellent. I have seen such 
a field struck with blight from a single night of 
heavy fog, and from that hour there was no further 
development. The straw was there. The wheat 
heads were there, but there was no kernel. The 
blight left the field useless and worthless. 

I do not know what more truly illustrates the 
effect of modernism on a church. The heavy 
perilous fog of doubt settles down upon the field, 
and hopes of a harvest are gone. We read that 
even Jesus in some instances “could there do no 
mighty work... because of their unbelief.” 
Have you noted how few children of the second 
generation of liberals attend church? Have you 
also noted that liberal churches are largely re- 
cruited from the derelicts of evangelical churches? 

It furnishes a stopping place on the downward 
incline and temporarily opiates the conscience, 
after the demand for regeneration and the author- 
ity of the Book of God has been surrendered. 
Churches desirous of retaining a living faith in a 
Living Christ must take no chances with men who 
stammer and hesitate and give evasive answers to 


THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 127 


questions as to the supernatural birth of Christ, 
His redemptive work on Calvary or His triumph- 
ant resurrection. 

It is, of course, possible that a man may hold 
all these views and not be fitted for leadership. 
No one doubts the immense importance of being 
assured that the life habits and practices of the 
Minister of the Word be Godly, and that he be 
filled with the Spirit of Christ. 

What is more pitiful than to find a church 
and community, once strong for God and God- 
liness, barren and desolate with the dying embers 
of a former life and beauty, telling of the dev- 
astating fires of anti-supernaturalistic teaching. 
The churches that are filled with worshipers are, 
with few exceptions, those that hold firmly to the 
Inspired Word, and above all to the Christ of 
Calvary, as the Redeemer, Friend and Infallible 
Counsellor. 

Who has not watched the process of preaching 
a church empty, and then abandoning it as beyond 
resuscitation? ‘Then has followed a testing of the 
promise of Jesus, “I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me.” As if by mir- 
acle the impossible has happened. Repentant men 
and women at the altar of God, and adequate 
means for the advancement of the Kingdom in that 
community ! 

Modernists like to give the impression that lay- 
men are not competent to deal with questions of 


128 THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 


religious doctrine. Ministers who do not wish to 
be closely questioned, declare that the average man 
should not undertake to determine what he should 
be taught. Do not be deceived by such foolish- 
ness. No man can speak with authority save 
Christ. Any commonsense layman knows that 
safety lies in securing a preacher who is in league 
with the Christ who “ spake as never man spake.” 
The average Church Committee needs a new con- 
fidence in itself to determine the kind of minister 
that can be trusted to teach the sons and daughters 
of the church and the community. Men are to be 
selected, not because of mere brilliancy, but be- 
cause of their unyielding hold on infallible truth. 
You want men who are preaching, not their own 
theories and opinions, but who are doing exactly 
what St. Paul did, preaching Jesus and the resur- 
rection. “Preach . . . the preaching that I bid 
thee,” |. Preach the (Word?) Here lemsarer 
strength and progress. 

Pulpit supply committees should understand that 
it is no sure evidence that a minister is evangelical 
merely because an Ecclesiastical Council has ac- 
cepted him. Councils and presbyteries will often 
pass any man with good moral character who 
believes in a Supreme Being. Make your own ex- 
amination before the call is issued, asking straight- 
forward questions as to belief in the Bible as God’s 
Inspired Word, and the Deity of Christ including 
the supernatural birth, the atonement and the resur- 


THE BLIGHT OF MODERNISM 129 


rection; if the candidate answers these questions 
positively and without evasion you may be sure he 
is doctrinally right. When a man says he person- 
ally believes in the Virgin Birth, etc., but does not 
regard it essential he places himself in an anoma- 
lous position, — 

If he believes in the Virgin Birth, it is because 
it is revealed in God’s Word, and if so revealed it 
is revealed as vitally important. The assumption 
of great breadth and magnanimity in such a posi- 
tion is wretchedly weak. If such a doctrine is to 
be believed at all, it is because it is fundamental in 
the Christian system of truth. 


XV 
EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 


O power has greater value than the power 
of initiative. To follow along in beaten 
trails is not sufficient. To strike out for 

new conquests requires a peculiar ability and great 
courage. The modernist will at once claim that 
precisely this is what he is doing. We answer that 
the mere fact of a new adventure is no indication 
of wisdom. It is possible to abandon the only 
sources of power and thus make the venture futile. 

The army that leaves altogether its base of 
supplies may make a rapid march, but it will be 
to its own destruction. Modernism is right now 
riding to a fall. 

Great adventures that have succeeded have been 
those that kept contact with the forces which have 
been proven trustworthy. It is no reflection on 
modernism that it ventures, but that it ventures 
irrationally, and without the Faith that alone can 
give it power. The great law of the tides is 
everywhere in evidence. ‘There are times when 
the gathered forces of past years are invoked suc- 
cessfully in launching anew some mighty spiritual 
enterprise. 


130 


EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 131 


The great Methodist movement was initiated by 
a group of men who had a passion for the salva- 
tion of the lost. Religion was at a low ebb. It 
was formalistic, and the Gospel was half believed 
or disbelieved, with the result of a moral slump, 
graphically portrayed in Lecky’s ‘“ European 
Morals.” Getting close to the heart of Jesus 
Christ, and with a new vision of the meaning of 
the Cross, the Wesleys, Whitefield and such men 
inaugurated a mighty religious movement. It 
grew in intensity and in breadth until it circled 
the globe. Millions were brought face to face 
with the inevitable judgment, and with strong 
crying and tears sought forgiveness. The very 
face of the world was changed by the wonderful 
Wesleyan Revival. The massive and mighty 
Methodist Church is a monument to this power of 
initiative. What is more inconceivable than that 
modernism could produce a Wesley who with an 
abiding belief in the Word and the Regnant Christ, 
dwelt in the inner chamber until the power of the 
Highest filled his very soul? Modernism has no 
such appeal to the heart of the world. 

Who inaugurated the Young Men’s Christian 
Association? Did George Williams have in mind 
merely the repair and ethical improvement of way- 
ward and homeless youth? He yearned for their 
salvation. He entered upon a new way of inter- 
esting and reaching young men, but ever and 
always with their soul transformation in view. ‘To 


132 EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 


be sure, there have followed in the wake of the 
movement many social activities and many organi- 
sations calculated to brighten and cheer the lives of 
young men and ensure their improvement. 

Modernism is_absolutely without any illustration 
of an initiative that has succeeded along distinc- 
tively spiritual and soul-saving lines. ‘Today the 
fruits of George Williams’ initiative are seen in 
every country on earth, and the future of the As- 
sociation hinges upon the same loyalty to Christ 
that was demonstrated in its founder. Let any 
movement, started as a spiritual force and with the 
purpose of complete salvation through regeneration, 
degenerate to the materialistic plane and the power 
goes out. 

This great movement in the interest of the 
world’s manhood was not inaugurated by a liberal 
or a modernist. It is true kindred efforts had been 
made by men merely philanthropic, but they had a 
short and impotent life. 

Turn again to another of the tidal movements 
of Christian History,—the Sunday School. Who 
had the wisdom and the purpose to start in 
operation so tremendous a movement looking to 
a world-wide knowledge of the Word of God? 
Was it some man who questioned the integrity 
and the authenticity and the Inspiration of the 
Word of God? Hardly. Could you conceive of 
the apostles of negation beginning anything like 
the Sunday School movement? But, you answer, 


EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 133 


today these are most active in what they call the 
educational programme of the church. Yes, after 
the believers in a Saving Christ have carried the 
movement on to a world-wide influence, it is true 
modernists have discovered in the Bible Schools a 
chance to impress their anti-supernatural theories 
and are using the very agency intended to proclaim 
redemption through Calvary, to undermine the only 
Faith that can save and build. 

Nevertheless, the fact remains that this splendid 
movement had its incentive and its initiative in the 
soul of Robert Raikes, a man saved by grace and 
approved of God. He never even so much as ques- 
tioned the realities of the Atoning work of Christ 
on Calvary. He never doubted that the Bible is 
God’s message to a lost world. He was sure re- 
garding the secret of Eternal Life. Note, then, 
that it was an evangelical, and no modernist, who 
brought millions of youth and of adults face to 
face with the portrait of a Redeeming Saviour in 
the Blessed Word of God. Now these are facts. 
How do you account for the fact that no such 
initiative is ever found in liberalism? 

Once more: Consider the Christian Endeavour 
Society. Here was evidently a true inspiration. 
The youth of the world had had little part in public 
testimony. The Church had found no active place 
for the young people. Their witnessing for Christ 
had not been greatly encouraged. Thousands grew 
up comparatively indifferent and largely ineffective 


134 EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 


because they had no training in the most blessed 
of all work, soul saving. Why did not some lib- 
eral or modernist inaugurate a movement that has 
girdled the globe and done more to develop the 
idea of world brotherhood than almost any other 
in history? This movement originated just where 
God Almighty inaugurates all of His great move- 
ments,—in the soul of a man regenerated by the 
Holy Ghost and faithful to Covenant truth. Dr. 
Francis E. Clark was used of the Holy Spirit to 
bring the youth of the world to face the responsi- 
bility of making declaration of Faith in Jesus 
Christ as the one and only Saviour. Like all true 
evangelicals, Dr. Clark was liberal, but not a lib- 
eral. He was clear-visioned, with broad sympathy 
and deep love for his fellow men, but he was and is 
an evangelical of evangelicals, and the very heart 
of his great message is loyalty to the Christ of 
the Cross. 

Today there are more than three million mem- 
bers of this Society in all countries. Modernists 
do not look with favour upon it. Many modern- 
ised churches eliminated the Society from their list 
of organisations. But where this has been done, 
unless an organisation builded on the same plat- 
form of faith has taken its place, like the Epworth 
League, the Young People’s Societies of the Pres- 
byterian Church and the Baptist Young People’s 
Union, all of which are Christian Endeavour So- 
cieties under another name; unless, I say, an or- 


EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 135 


ganisation with a soul-saving programme has taken 
the place of the Endeavour Society, spiritual de- 
cline has followed the dissolving of the Society. 

Today the Christian Endeavour Society is one 
of the great factors in the religious life of the 
world. It has had much to do in preparing youth 
for the tests of faith incident to college life and 
has enabled hundreds and thousands to stand the 
test and later to join the great Student Volunteer 
Movement. This movement was inaugurated by 
an evangelical who heartily accepts every great 
fundamental of Christianity and the Bible as the 
inspired Word of God. 

Is it a mere accident that every one of these 
great World Movements had its origin in the heart 
and mind of evangelicals? Nothing could be more 
irrational than such a conclusion. ‘There is a 
reason. There was a dynamic adequate to the 
stupendous achievement in each case and _ that 
dynamic was the Redemptive Passion. Nothing 
else can or does give the urge within that drives 
on or the wisdom that directs. Hardly a better 
illustration could be given of the utter failure of 
liberalism to carry to successful issue anything in 
the nature of a Mission to the needy than the 
Morgan Memorial in Boston. Liberalists expended 
much money on the plant; after trying in vain to 
work it, and finding they had no appeal and no 
message that would draw the people, they turned 
it over to the Methodists who have been success- 


136 EVANGELICAL INITIATIVE 


fully ministering to the needs of thousands. A 
social gospel merely as a social gospel is the most 
unworkable, absurd and unsuccessful of modern 
misconceptions. There is a true Social Gospel, but 
it is based wholly on personal regeneration and 
appreciates that the individual is the unit of society. 
Even settlement work without Christ is a poor, 
twilight affair. 


XVI 
ii, LOST CHRIS TF 


OR two thousand years all human progress 
has followed the lead of the Atoning 
Christ. The best in human thinking, the 

best in human doing, the best in human feeling 
have been incited by a contemplation of the life 
and sacrifice of the Nazarene. The tremendous 
influence He has exercised and is now exercising 
is due in part to His exalted life and in part to 
His matchless teaching, but principally to the Cross 
and all that it represents. Suppose Christ were 
lost to human faith and human thought! Have 
you ever contemplated the awful poverty which 
would result? Imagine where it would leave the 
Art Galleries of the world! The bare spaces 
which would result from the removal of the Christ 
of art would be typical of the blank emptiness in 
human thought and life. Suppose Christ were lost 
to music. What could be substituted for Him? 
It would mean that the most glorious of all music 
would be silent. Turn again to the world’s notable 
libraries. Do you realise what a proportion of the 
finest literature has been inspired by the Christ of 
the Manger, the Cross and the Throne? ‘The 


137 


138 THE LOST CHRIST 


empty shelves in our public libraries would be 
their most conspicuous feature if Christ were lost. 
The Madonnas represent the story of the Virgin 
Birth. The period of the Renaissance is occupied 
largely with religious art, and the Virgin and her 
Divine Child engaged the effort of the most illus- 
trious artists. If the Madonnas are only perpetu- 
ating a falsehood in telling the Christ story of the 
Nativity, of course they should be removed from 
the realm of reality. What, then, becomes of Bot- 
ticelli’s “‘ Madonna Dolorosa,” now in the National 
Gallery, London, or Belini’s “ Madonna” in the 
same Gallery? We would lose all the notable 
works of Fra Angelico. We could no more look 
with any satisfaction upon the Madonna of price- 
less beauty by Perugino. All these represent only 
a lost Christ, if the Virgin Birth was a myth. 
Who would wish to remove from their places of 
honour the Madonnas of Raphael or Correggio or 
daVinci? Modernism has no true place for 
Rossetti’s “‘ Annunciation,” or “ Botticelli’s “ The 
Nativity,’ or “ Correggio’s “Adoration of the 
Shepherds,” in Dresden, and the long list of pic- 
tures of the Nativity, all with a Divine content. 
What shall we do with Albrecht Durer’s ‘ Resur- 
rection,’ and the same Gospel proclaimed by scores 
of the world’s great artists? If Christ did not 
rise from the dead, all these things are a mockery. 
Turn for a moment to music. What gave to 
the world its most Divinely inspired of all music, 


THE LOST CHRIST 139 


the great Oratorios and hymns of the Church? 
Deny the Adorable Christ His rightful place, and 
you can no more sing with any sincerity the “ Mes- 
siah”’ or the “ Redemption.” We must lose for- 
ever the sweet strains of “ Unto us a child is born; 
unto us a Son is given, and the Government shall 
be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be 
called Wonderful, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 
Prince of Peace.” Just as little would we be able 
to listen with the slightest enthusiasm or satisfac- 
tion to ‘ He was despised and rejected of men, a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” What 
possible significance could attach to the “ Halle- 
lujah Chorus”? 

Think what an impoverishment it would mean 
if the Christmas carols were all eliminated and 
scores of the great anthems which convey their 
marvelous message of salvation. What becomes 
of the “ Spirituals,” that long line of sympathetic 
and appealing messages in song directed straight 
to the soul? When Christ is lost, these also are all 
lost. It is doubtful if the Christian religion could 
ever successfully have made its appeal to the world 
through the generations, without music. Modern- 
ism draws a black line through the hymns which 
from our childhood have been instructive, inspiring 
and uplifting. We could hear no more “ Alas, and 
did my Saviour bleed,” “ All Hail the Power of 
Jesus’ Name,” “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” 
“Beneath the Cross of Jesus,” ‘‘ Christ for the 


140 THE LOST CHRIST 


World we Sing,” “Crown Him with Many 
Crowns,” “ He Lives, the Great Redeemer Lives,” 
“How Firm a Foundation,’ “I am Trusting 
Thee, Lord Jesus.” Would you wish to be unable 
to sing with any. possible enthusiasm and belief, 
“In the Cross of Christ I Glory”? Who would 
want to give up the sense of deep resolve sug- 
gested in “ Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken,” or in 
“Jesus, Lover of My Soul’? How impossible 
if Christ died and did not rise again to sing, 
“ Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me,” or “ Jesus Shall Reign 
Where’er the Sun.” We must halt once and for all 
that almost endless procession moving into the 
Kingdom singing, “ Just as 1 Am.” We must drop 
out of our hymn books, “ Love Divine, All Loves 
Excelling,”’ “ Majestic Sweetness Sits Enthroned,” 
“My Dear Redeemer and My Lord,” and “ My 
Faith Looks up to Thee.” How much the spir- 
itual life would lose were we compelled to tear 
from our hymn books, “‘ My Jesus as Thou Wilt,” 
“O, Could I Speak the Matchless Worth,” “O 
Holy Saviour, Friend Unseen,” “O Love Divine 
that Stooped to Share.’ How can modernism 
make any great appeal to you when you know it 
forbids you longer to sing “ Saviour, Thy Dying 
Love,” “ Stand up, Stand up for Jesus,” “ Sun of 
My Soul, Thou Saviour Dear,” “ The Son of God 
Goes Forth to War,” “We Would See Jesus”? 
How could we get on without that great hymn of 
the Church, “ Rock of Ages”? Then how utterly 


THE LOST CHRIST 141 


absurd would be the celebration of Christmas if 
the Birth of the Babe of Bethlehem were no more 
than the birth of Abraham Lincoln, important an 
event as that was! Christmas festivities for liber- 
alism are a travesty. The great spiritual signifi- 
cance of the Incarnation is what gives Christmas 
Day its meaning. Rob it of this and it is nothing. 
Equally true is all this of Easter. To deny the 
resurrection of Jesus and then go through the 
forms of Easter celebration is nothing less than 
sacrilegious. It is bold, barren pretense. Not less 
true is this of the Lord’s Supper. With what con- 
sistency or sense can the Lord’s Supper be cele- 
brated when His Redemption is denied? Jesus 
said, ““ As often as ye eat this bread and drink this 
cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” 
To eliminate its sacrificial suggestiveness and make 
merely a fellowship meeting of it can win the 
approbation neither of God nor of men. 

There is nothing more pathetic than the descent 
of a soul once holding with faith the great truths) 
of our holy religion, but now sinking into the 
dismal swamps of modernism. 


XVII 
THE BRIGHTER DAY 


CTION and reaction are the law of life. 

For twenty-five years the drift has been 

strong toward rationalism, radicalism and 
anti-supernaturalism in its varied forms. The 
dynamic of truth is blasting away the foundations 
of structures erected on human speculation, and 
they are toppling over. Erecting houses on sand 
dunes is not a profitable business. Sooner or later 
the insecurity of such structures becomes apparent 
and sensible people are unwilling to occupy them. 
People are wearying of negations. The everlast- 
ing apology for the interrogation point is palling 
on the taste. A tremendous demand for positive 
and constructive truth is everywhere apparent. 
Thousands of people have been living in the fog 
of a fading faith. The world’s unrest is not a 
little due to a consciousness of spiritual insecurity, 
and this insecurity has been brought about by 
visionless professors, preachers and teachers. Pre- 
suming to be wise above what is written, hundreds 
of men have substituted theory and speculation for 
Revelation, and with monumental conceit have pre- 
sumptuously cast aspersions at traditional truth, 


142 


THE BRIGHTER DAY 143 


and have sought, by sarcasm and ridicule, to alien- 
ate the Christian Church herself, from the great 
fundamentals of Christianity. 

We attribute the moral slump of today to. the 
effect of the Great War. As a matter of fact, the 
war itself, and all its consequences, are attributable 
to a contempt for the Bible as an authoritative 
guide to truth and righteousness, and to the vicious 
doctrine that there is no authority save the author- 
ity of individual experience. As a consequence of 
all this, the sense of moral accountability has weak- 
ened; a belief in judgment to come has been super- 
seded by either an open question as to the reality 
of the life to come, at all, or a weakening of the 
truth of the love of God, which has left men free 
to follow their own devices without a fear of 
consequences. 

All these things affect not an iota the eternal 
truth, the indestructibility of the Word of God, 
the vitality of the Church, and that supremest of all 
realities, Redemption through Jesus Christ. The 
mass of the people come to recognise and dis- 
criminate between the true and the false, and a 
misguided Church discovers, sometimes after years 
of decline, that the only real hope of the world lies 
in accepting and appropriating as true and trust- 
worthy what God has revealed to man through the 
Bible and through experience. 

That is precisely what is happening today: a 
return to the Cross of Christ in all the fullness of 


144 THE BRIGHTER DAY 


its Divine meaning. Unbelief and indifference have 
not gone to the extremes, during this more ration- 
alistic movement, that characterised the Church of 
one hundred and twenty-five years ago. The re- 
action from infidelity is sure to be strong and ~ 
steady. The Bible will be restored to its rightful 
place. Jesus Christ, as the Son of God with power, 
will be recognised in His kingship and Saviour- 
hood; and the Church will forge ahead on stronger 
and truer lines to a realization of the kingdom of 
Christ in the world. 

Fifty years from now, the Christian Church 
will be a far greater power in shaping social 
activities and in directing great political agencies 
through the influence of her members. There will 
be no closer relation between Church and State 
than today. But as a great social and political 
influence, the Church will become directive and 
controlling. That regal thing, public sentiment, 
which is the uncrowned king of America, will 
become sufficiently Christianised to secure re- 
straining legislation, holding in check manifold 
ills, and will become also sufficiently compelling 
in spiritual lines to lift the ethical tone of so- 
ciety to a far higher level. The Church will be 
recognised as the one and only power capable of 
holding back the tides of iniquity which are ever 
seeking to engulf the world. 

Few misconceptions are more absurd than that 
the Church is simply a passing phase of religion 


THE BRIGHTER DAY 145 


which can be dispensed with. On the contrary, it 
is God’s permanent instrumentality to accomplish 
and achieve the purposes of Christ among men. 
It is filled with a true divinity. With all its defects 
and imperfections it is destined to increase in power 
until, through the religious sentiment it creates, it 
will dominate the world. Here we have our hope 
for the future. Here lies our truest ground of 
expectation, that the antagonisms engendered by 
human selfishness will give place to pacific and fra- 
ternal activities relating mankind amicably together. 

There are a hundred reasons why we may enter- 
tain the largest hope for humanity, and the chief 
reason is that God is active among men. He is 
not an absentee God. He is taking a hand in human 
affairs. But He is working through His Church, 
and there can be no higher honour than to co- 
operate with Him as a member of the visible body 
of Christ in bringing to a final consummation the 
purposes of the Almighty. 

The Church of Christ has passed through many 
cyclonic outbursts of unbelief. Men wise above 
what is written, have sought to substitute their own 
judgments or misjudgments for the inspired Word. 
An unsatisfied world, protesting against the stern 
demands of the religion of Jesus, turns to the man- 
made schemes and theories in the hope of finding 
an easier route to spiritual satisfaction. But this 
satisfaction never lasts long. Great revivals of 
pure and undefiled religion have always followed 


146 THE BRIGHTER DAY 


the times of bold assertion, unrestrained denial and 
repudiation of the doctrines of Grace and In- 
spiration. Every heart carries within itself the 
evidence of its sin and its need of a Saviour. 
Thirst seeks the fountain, hunger seeks bread; and 
Christ is both, exactly as He declared. Man was 
made for God, and finds no peace until He finds 
God. Man finds God in Christ, or nowhere. 

The Church is the Bride of Christ. He knows 
how to take care of her. A return to the Christ 
of the Manger, Cross and Throne is the hope of 
the world. The Kingship of Jesus fully recog- 
nised will transform the whole world. In His own 
time Jesus will return in triumph. He will come 
as Master of the world. How and when have never 
been revealed. It is enough to know He is even 
now enthroned in Glory. He is a Living Chnist. 
Meanwhile the witnesses must testify faithfully. 
Christ has laid upon His disciples the responsibility 
of warning, and of witnessing, pleading and appeal- 
ing. The moral slump into which America has 
fallen is more largely due to false teaching than to 
any other cause. It is utterly impossible to deny 
the mandatory nature of God’s Word and at the 
same time to maintain public morale. The very 
exuberance of youth will lead to dire results if 
the powerful inner compulsions and wholesome 
restraints of revealed religion are withdrawn. 

In the last analysis authority resides not in the 
human conscience, understanding or will, but in 


THE BRIGHTER DAY 147 


God. When “ought” and “must” are blotted 
out of the vocabulary of experience, sentimentality 
is substituted for conviction, preference takes the 
place of purpose, and personality becomes. flabby 
and weak. It is then that the powerful undertow 
of passion pulls the soul under the waves of the 
sea of sensual satisfactions. The arrest of the 
downward trend of today will begin and continue 
when the Christian ministry faithfully proclaims 
the whole counsel of God, concealing nothing, 
diluting nothing, camouflaging nothing; but on the 
contrary, engages in revealing the inevitable results 
of sin and sinning. 

Thousands of twice-born men and women, sure 
of the Word of God, sure of Jesus Christ, sure of 
redeeming grace, are being commissioned to preach 
Christ and Him crucified. In these thoughtful 
evangelicals, grounded in the truth, burning with 
zeal, radiating the light and heat of Divine Love, 
rests the assurance of the world’s brighter day. 

What Abraham Lincoln said of the nation in his 
day, is true of the Church today. Note the parallel- 
ism: “ A house divided against itself can not stand. 
I believe this Government can not endure perma- 
nently, half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the house to fall. I do not expect the Union to be 
dissolved, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind 


148 THE BRIGHTER DAY 


shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it 
forward until it shall become alike lawful,-in all 
the States.” Lincoln knew which would win. So 
do we, in the present issue. God Almighty will 
never see His Blessed Word permanently borne 
down and defeated. The ultimate outcome is as 
sure as God’s Throne. ‘The great Evangel is final 
and eternal. | 


STRIKING ADDRESSES 








JOHN HENRY JOWETT,D.D, 


God Our Contemporary 


A Series of Complete Addresses $1.50. 


Among the pulpit-giants of to-day Dr. Jowett has been 
given a high place. Every preacher will want at once 
this latest product of his fertile mind. It consists of a 
series of full length sermons which are intended to show 
that only in God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ can 
we find the resources to meet the needs of human life. 


SIDNEY BERRY, M.A. 


e se 

Revealing Light $1.50. 

A volume of addresses by the sutcessor to Dr. Jowett 
at Carr’s Lane Church, Birmingham, the underlying aim 
of which is to show what the Christian revelation means 
in relation to the great historic facts of the Faith and 
the response which those facts must awaken in the hearts 
of men to-day. Every address is an example of the 
best preaching of this famous ‘‘preacher to young men.” 


FREDERICK C. SPURR 
Last Minister of Regent’s Park Chapel, Loudon. 


The Master Key 
A Study in World-Problems $1.35. 


A fearless, clearly-reasoned restatement of the terms of 
the Christian Gospel and its relation to the travail through 
which the world is passing. Mr. Spurr is a man in the 
vanguard of religious thought, yet just as emphatically as 
any thinker of the old school, he insists on one Physician 


able to heal the wounds and woes of humanity. 


RUSSELL H. CONWELL, D.D. 
Pastor Baptist Temple, Philadeiphia, 


Unused Powers $1.25, 
To “Acres of Diamonds,” “The Angel’s Lily,” ““Why 
Lincoln Laughed,” “How to Live the Christ Life,” and 
many other stirring volumes, Dr. Conwell has just added 
another made up of some of his choicest addresses. Dr. 
Conwell speaks, as he has always spoken, out of the ex- 
perimental knowledge and practical wisdom of a man, wha 
having long faced the stark realities of life, has been 
exalted thereby. 


GAIUS GLENN ATKINS, D.D. 


Minister of the First Congregational Church, 
Detroit, Michigan. 


® 
The Undiscovered Country $1.50. 
A group of addresses marked by distinction of style 
and originality of approach. The title discourse furnishes 
a central theme to which those following stand in rela- 
tion. Dr. Atkins’? work, throughout, is marked by clarity 
of presentation, polished diction and forceful phrasing. 


EVANGELISTIC WORK 








OZORA HR. DAVIS, DID; 
President Chicago Theological Seminary. 


Preaching the Social Gospel : 

1.50. 

The new book by the author of “Evangelistic Preach- 

ing” is the next book every preacher should read. As a 

high authority recently said “Every preacher needs to 

read books on preaching and the problems of preaching 

and should read one such book every year.” It would be 

difficult to find a book that fits this need better than this 
latest work of President Davis’, 


J. WILBUR CHAPMAN, D.D. 


Evangelistic Sermons 


Edited and Compiled by Edgar - Whitaker 
Work, D.D., with Frontispiece. $1.50. 


Strong, fervid gospel addresses, eminently character- 
istic of one of the great evangelists of his time. Dr. 
Work has used his editorial prerogatives with pronounced 
skill. As a result every paragraph is reminiscent of 
Dr. Chapman, and from every page of the book one 
seems to hear again the voice and compelling message 
of one who while living preached to possibly as many 
people as any man of his generation, who “being dead 
yet speaketh.” 


EOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 
Author of '' Thirty-one Revival Sermons” 


The New Ten Commandments 


and Other Sermons. $1.50. 


Strong, stirring id addresses reflecting the true 
evangelical note, Dr. Banks’ latest volume, fully main- 
tains his impressive, picturesque style of presentation. 
Apt quotation, fitting illustration, drawn from literature 
and human life give point and color to his work, which 
is without a dull or meaningless page. 


FRANK CHALMERS McKEAN, A.M., D.D. 


The Magnetism of Mystery 


and Other Sermons 


Introduction by J. A. Marquis, D.D. $1.25 


Dr. John A. Marquis says: “Dr. McKean’s sermons are 
shafts with points, and he hurls them with vigor and sure- 
ness, They will be read with interest, not only for what 
they are in themselves, but as types of the pulpit ministry 
that is making the Church of the Middle West.” 


EVANGELISTIC METHODS, ETC. 
senor ees eens 


R. A. TORREY, D.D. 


The Gospel for To-day 


New Evangelistic Sermons for a New Day. 
$1.50. 
A new volume of appealing addresses by the well-known 
evangelist and Bible teacher, characterized by unusual 
clearness of statement and frankness of appeal. The 
Christian Endeavor World says of ae Torrey’s sermons: 
“They are full of power. They have Moody’s earnest- 
ness and pith, They are sound to the core. They will 
make revivals even in their printed form,” 


R. A. TORREY. ; D.D. 
Personal Work 
$1.25. 


A new edition of Dr. Torrey’s pertinent and timely 
yolume for evangelistic work. As one reviewer said: 
“Dr. Torrey is not one of the men who ‘aim at nothing 
and hit it.’ He is no trifler, and does not act as if he 
imagined that one bit of argument or appeal is not about 
as good as another irrespective of the particular state of 
mind of the person appealed to.’ 


wl grt 
DWIGHT MALLORY PRATT, D.D. APs Pee 


The Master’s Method of Winning Men 


Introduction by Frederick L. Fagley, D.D. 
$1.00. 
A plea for “personal evangelism.’? While not unmind- 
ful of the usefulness and practicability of other ways of 
bringing men to Christ, Dr. Pratt gives pride of place 
to personal contact as the most effectual method of win- 
ning souls. He adds the records of a number of striking 
instances of how it has shown itself to be one of the 
chief glories and most effective agencies of the Christian 
religion. 


JOHN TIMOTHY STONE 


Recruiting for Christ 


Hand-to-Hand Methods with Men. 
New Edition. $1.50. 


An up-to-date edition of this helpful book on Evan- 
hl ve work of which The Presbyterian Advance said: 
‘Preaching is no less necessary than formerly, but must 
be supplemented by personal appeal. This remarkably 
helpful book contains many suggestions, drawn largely 
from personal experience, as to the men to reach, prep- 
aration for, the work, aieihats of approach, methods of 
work, etc.” 


HELPFUL SERMONS 


stent SAT RRR SR NED RPS eA ESHER ae ASIC TER 


JAMES I. VANCE, D.D., LL.D. 


Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tenn. 


In the Breaking of the Bread 


Communion Addresses. $1.25. 


“4 volume of communion addresses marked by deep 
spiritual insight.and knowledge of the human heart. They 
are well adapted to awaken the spiritual conceptions which 
should accompany the observance of the Lord’s Supper— 
suggestions fitted for a communion occasion. The _ad- 
dresses all bear upon the general theme of the Lord’s Sup- 
per and showed marked spirituality of thought and fervency 
of expression.”’—Uwmited Presbyterian. 


TEUNIS E. GOUWENS Pastor Second Presbyterian 
RRR! Church, Louisville, Ky, 


The Rock That Is Higher 
And Other Addresses. $1.25. 


An unusually successful volume of discourses of which 
Dr, Charles §. Macfarland of the Church Federal Council, 
says: ‘“‘Contents the intellect because it first satisfies the 
heart, and commands the incontestable assent of human 
experience........ As I have read it I have found my 
conscience penetrated, my faith deepened and my hope 
quickened.” 


WW", RUSSELL BOWIE, D.D. 


Rector of St. Paul’s Church, Richmond, Va, 


The Road of the Star 


and Other Sermons, $1.50. 


A volume of addresses which bring the message of 
Christianity with fresh and kindling interpretation to the 
immediate needs of men. ‘The extraordinary distinction 
of Dr. Bowie’s preaching rises from the fact that to 
great vigor of thought he has added the winged power of 
an imagination essentially poetic. 


JOSEPH JUDSON TAYLOR, D. D,, LUD, 
Author of “The Sabbatic Quesiton,” *‘The God of War,” etc. 
Radiant Hopefulness 
$1.00. 


A message of enheartenment, a word of cheer, for men 
and women whose hearts have been fearful, whose spirits 
have been shaken in the turbulent times through which 
the world has passed in recent years, with which man- 
kind still finds itself faced. In this volume of addresses, 
Dr. Taylor points the way to comfort amid confusion, to 
peaceful harborage amid the prevailing storm. 





DATE DUE 


Pet 2 om ¢ 
F by, 


GAYLORD PRINTEDINU.S.A. 


Bibs, | 
a hoes 





rrsiee ys 


erent 


1 1012 01020 2879 


a 
2 
o 
g 
2 
oJ 
. 
av 
ea 
a) 
n 
f 
ay 
= 
cc 
i= 
& 
ev 
n 
w 
4 
a 
so 
° 
oe 
= 
= 
c 
°o 
$ 
ea 
rs) 
= 
= 
a 


r= 


re reseve tes 


Srertsecmet 


tare re anwy 
ahs 


tm 
Se eee 


See 


nen ea 
Spite estates Spee 


~ Pee ious eet et ae 
Se epedieree ptteencet : 


peeves restates 


eS 


ES eveert 
eltucheatinaiacktheietr esa! 
Delorean tee a Steet | 


a 
ae ts 


SES ANE 
~*- beats Se 


Sink 


fet 
i 





